Ginnie Mae issuance gets closer to its two-year peak

Ginnie Mae's latest monthly release of portfolio data shows the dollar volume of its new mortgage-backed securities has risen another notch closer to peaks not seen since 2022.

The government agency guaranteed $41.2 billion in issuance during August, marking the second month in a row of higher issuance and suggesting July's numbers weren't an anomaly.

Ginnie backed $42.6 billion in issuance back in September 2022, bringing August's total to a point just $1.4 billion shy of a high-water benchmark it's been below for 23 months. 

August's government lending helped support the financing of over 119,000 households in total, including over 61,000 first-time homebuyers, according to the release.

Ginnie's portfolio saw $13.7 billion in net growth during the last month, growing the portfolio outstanding to $2.63 trillion. 

The agency reported about 72% of the loans were for home purchases as refinance activity remained low.

While refinance activity is still historically low, it has seen a small growth spurt in recent weeks. Mortgage rates are still too high for a large number of borrowers who got loans for record-low costs during the pandemic to obtain savings from refinancing.

Last month's issuance is divided between $40.1 billion of Ginnie Mae II MBS and $1 billion of Ginnie Mae I MBS, also including $921 million in multifamily housing loans. Last year saw multifamily loans drop to just about half of the previous year's volume, according to the MBA. 

For the 2024 calendar year to date, Ginnie Mae has supported the pooling and securitization of more than 429,000 first-time homebuyer loans.​​​

The rise in issuance of securitized mortgages Ginnie guarantees accelerates improvements in new business activity to a pace last seen around when policymakers began raising short-term interest rates. 

Those rates have since stabilized and are expected to receive their first cut, albeit a minor one, next week following mixed signals in the inflation rate.

The 12 month inflation rate of 2.5% was at its lowest level in two years in the latest report. However, shelter costs lifted the closely-watched core Consumer Price Index, which excludes some volatile segments of the economy, to a slightly higher level.

Mortgage rates trended lower in August as well and have been since May. The majority of homeowners now have rates below 6%.