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TH E M R EP O RT | 61 SECONDARY MARKET THE LATEST O R I G I NAT I O N S E R V I C I N G DATA G O V E R N M E N T S E C O N DA R Y M A R K E T Ginnie Mae Reports MBS Issuances Mortgage-backed securities continue increasing, rising above $1B for second time since 2016. G innie Mae, the wholly owned government corporation that attracts global capital into the housing finance system, announced that its issuance of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) over a two month period totaled $186.6 billion at the end of February 2018, taking its total outstanding principal balance to $1.93 trillion, an increase from $1.79 trillion reported during the same period last year. This is a slight increase from an outstanding of $1.92 trillion reported in January 2018. According to the report, MBS rose above $1 billion for the second time since 2016. Giving a breakdown of its monthly is- suance in February, Ginnie Mae said that the breakdown included $31.51 billion of Ginnie Mae II MBS and $1.7 billion of Ginnie Mae I MBS. Together, these securities provided access to $33.56 billion in capital for single-family home loans and $1.38 billion for multifamily housing. On a month-over-month basis, the issuance of Ginnie Mae II MBS was down $3.1 billion from $34.61 billion reported in January 2018. The issuance of Ginnie Mae's I MBS remained unchanged from the month prior, however together they provided more capital for single-family home loans as well as multifamily housing in January compared with February. Ginnie Mae's I MBS are modi- fied pass-through mortgage-backed securities on which registered hold- ers receive separate principal and interest payments on each of their certificates. Ginnie Mae II MBS are modified pass-through mortgage- backed securities for which regis- tered holders receive an aggregate principal and interest payment from a central paying agent. Ginnie Mae announced that the MPF Program backed by Ginnie Mae had also surpassed $1 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) issued. The MPF Government MBS product was the result of a partnership forged by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago and Ginnie Mae to issue securities guaranteed by Ginnie Mae and backed by mortgages originated by FHLB member financial institutions. The product provides mortgage lend- ers—particularly smaller institu- tions—direct access to the second- ary mortgage market, and more options when creating mortgage products for their home-buying customers. $33.56B Amount in capital provided for single-family home loans by Ginnie Mae FHFA: Fannie, Freddie Foreclosure Preventions Top 4M in Q4 Struggling borrowers retain homes, modify loans, and reduce monthly payments in prevention report findings. T he Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) rolled out its fourth- quarter Foreclosure Prevention Report, which shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac zipped up 67,569 foreclosure prevention actions in the fourth quarter of 2017. Across the board, that brings the number of home- owners helped to 4,040,258 since the start of the conservatorships in September 2008. Of those actions, 3,357,722 helped struggling borrowers remain in their homes, including 2,150,946 permanent loan modifications. Nineteen percent of Q 4 loan mods shaved borrowers' monthly pay- ments by more than 30 percent. Forbearance plans vaulted to 24,935 during Q 4—they totaled 1,212 in the previous quarter. FHFA attributes the notable leap to disaster-related forbearance available to homeowners affected by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Various mortgage relief options are offered to home- owners affected by natural disas- ters, and numerous homeowners tapped into them after these three devastating storms. The percentage of 60-plus-days delinquent loans rose from 1.32 percent to 1.65 percent at the end of Q 4, the FHFA reports. The increase largely stems from the impact of the year's hurricanes. Fannie and Freddie's fourth-quar- ter 2017 REO inventory slid by a reported 9 percent. Additionally, some of the other foreclosure prevention metrics mentioned in the fourth-quarter report are as follows: forty-two percent of the Q 4 mods were principal forbearance modifica- tions, and those with extend-term only also made up 42 percent of all loan modifications during the fourth quarter; in the short sales and deeds-in-lieu category, Fannie and Freddie completed 3,119 of them during Q 4, bringing that total to 682,536 since the conser- vatorships started; the enterprises' serious delinquency rate rose to 1.18 percent at the close of Q 4, and as a comparison, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans totaled 4.8 percent, and Veterans Affairs (VA) loans amounted to 2.4 percent. The total for all loans (i.e., industry average) was 2.9 percent. Foreclosure starts broadened 6 percent to 45,203, while third-party and foreclosure sales fell 14 percent to 13,448 in Q 4.