Issuance of prime non-agency MBS tripled from 2023 to 2024, boosting the market to its best year since 2021. Expanded-credit mortgage securitization accounted for 34% of non-agency issuance last year. (Includes three data tables.)

Bulk sales of agency MSR played a role in the growth of several nonbank servicing portfolios during the fourth quarter. The market continued to shift to higher-coupon mortgages. (Includes two data tables.)

Rate-term refis helped to drive up residential MBS issuance in the fourth quarter.

Deliveries of rate-term refinances into agency MBS declined by almost 40% on a monthly basis in December.

New issuance was up in all the major food groups last year: residential MBS, commercial MBS and ABS. But overall quarterly volume slipped late in 2024.

Many top-tier sellers in the agency single-family market recorded massive increases in sales of rate-term refinances in the fourth quarter — but the refi market cratered in December.

The big gains came in high-LTV refinances, which surged to 13.6% of the sample, a 7.05 percentage point increase.

Bank holding company trading accounts saw a 3.9% increase in total residential MBS holdings in the third quarter.

The jump in refinance business, and a shift from cash-out to rate-term transactions, changed the credit-risk profile for Fannie and Freddie in the fourth quarter.

Agency pass-through MBS remain the most popular asset in bank holding company trading accounts, but there was a sharp increase in agency multifamily securities during the third quarter.