It was also the lowest three-month volume since the fourth quarter of 2008, not long after dramatically higher “emergency” loan limits were put in place by the agencies.

American Capital Agency Corp., the second-largest REIT MBS investor, reported a sharp 14.6 percent drop in its holdings during the first quarter. But officials are upbeat about the future.

With interest rates dropping in recent weeks, some mortgage observers say there’s a chance that the refi market could rebound.

Unlike a lot of other housing-market data, the MBS figures are not seasonally adjusted, though they are seasonally affected.

Zach Oppenheimer, a senior vice president at Fannie Mae, said it’s a positive development that more private capital is coming into the mortgage servicing space.

The first quarter of 2014 marked the lowest point in mortgage banking income for depositories since the second quarter of 2011.

Bank and thrift MBS holdings were up a modest 1.0 percent from the previous quarter, but it marked the first increase since the third quarter of 2012, when the Federal Reserve began aggressively buying agency MBS and Treasury securities.

Fannie Mae has traditionally reserved the right to invoke margin calls if it needs to.

An East Coast-based warehouse executive, requesting anonymity, said he has approached his credit board about such a change, and his waiting to hear back from them.

Only about 27.7 percent of Ginnie Mae first-quarter volume were refinance loans, and the refi share of the overall market fell to an estimated 44.3 percent, Inside Mortgage Finance found.