While not as substantial as June's increase, Freddie Mac's total mortgage portfolio still expanded in July, this time at a compound annualized rate of 0.8 percent, according to Freddie Mac's July 2015 Monthly Volume Summary released on Wednesday.
July marked the sixth consecutive month and the 11th time in the last 13 months Freddie Mac's mortgage portfolio has expanded. The 0.8 percent rate of increase calculated to a month-over-month improvement of $1.29 billion, up to approximately $1.925 trillion. This is following June's annualized rate of increase of 2.8 percent, which caused the portfolio's value to rise by $4.5 billion.
At the beginning of that 13-month period (July 2014) which saw 11 months of expansion for Freddie Mac's total mortgage portfolio, the portfolio's value was $1.895 trillion. Though the portfolio has seen expansion in 11 of the last 13 months, July was only the 18th time in the last 67 months that the portfolio has grown dating back to January 2010.
Freddie Mac deputy chief economist Len Kiefer said low mortgage rates and surging home sales have driven up conventional mortgage activity considerably from where it was at this time last year, and he expects mortgage origination volume to be up by 8 percent, up to $100 billion, in 2015 compared to 2014.
The serious delinquency rate on Freddie Mac-backed single-family residential mortgage loans fell by another 5 basis points from June to July, down to 1.48 percent and is now lower than the 1.52 percent serious delinquency rate reported for Freddie Mac-guaranteed loans in November 2008 at the start of the financial crisis. By comparison, CoreLogic reported the overall national delinquency rate at 3.5 percent in June.
A total of 4,347 homeowners with Freddie Mac-backed loans received permanent loan modifications in July, down from June's total of 4,895. Year-to-date as of July 31, a total of 34,659 Freddie Mac-insured homeowners have received loan modifications, an average of 4,951 modifications per month. In 2014, homeowners averaged 5,596 permanent loan mods per month.
Single-family refinance loan purchase and guarantee volume totaled $20.2 billion in July, down slightly from June's total of $20.2 billion. The percentage of single-family refinance loan purchase and guarantee volume that comprised the total single-family mortgage portfolio dropped slightly from 56 percent in June to 55 percent in July after dropping from 61 percent in May. Relief refinance mortgages comprised about 9 percent of all of Freddie Mac's single-family refi volume during July.
The aggregate unpaid principal balance (UPB) of the Freddie Mac's mortgage-related investments portfolio declined by about $9.6 billion in July after experiencing a $7 billion drop in June.
