Freddie Mac continued to expand its share of the GSE single-family business in November, following a strong showing the previous month, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis of mortgage-backed securities data. The two GSEs guaranteed $79.09 billion in new single-family MBS last month, an unexpected 4.5 percent increase from October’s production. Freddie posted the biggest increase, 7.4 percent for the month, while Fannie issuance in November was up a more modest 2.0 percent. That pushed Freddie’s share of the GSE single-family MBS business to 47.0 percent, up from 45.7 percent in October, matching the company’s biggest market share since July 2015. Through the first nine months of 2017, Freddie managed to garner...
As the Federal Housing Finance Agency works to prepare the industry for the single security and common securitization platform, officials are keeping a close eye on consistency in prepayment speeds between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The single security and CSP are on target for implementation in 2019, according to a new FHFA progress update released in December. In that report, the FHFA described in more detail the processes it has in place to minimize variance in prepayment speeds between Fannie and Freddie mortgage-backed securities that have the same coupon, maturity and issuance cohort.
The GSEs’ low downpayment programs are gaining some traction among first-time homebuyers. According to an analysis by Inside The GSEs, 97 percent loan-to-value mortgages now represent close to 15 percent of first-time homebuyer mortgages sold to the GSEs. The high LTV programs have grown gradually, but steadily, since they were introduced. But they were slow to catch on. By the end of 2015, the high LTV programs represented 5 percent of the FTHB market, which grew to nearly 10 percent at the end of last year. They represented approximately 14 percent of first-timer mortgages in the third quarter of 2017. The top three banks originating these low downpayment loans are...