The rise in the guarantee fees charged by Fannie Mae is taking more of a profit share for the government-sponsored enterprise. The extent to which investors contribute to the Fannie Mae bottom line, on the other hand, is shrinking.
In a conference call this morning, Fannie Mae reported record profits on the back of record business.
Since the housing crises, Fannie Mae provided $3.5 trillion in liquidity to the secondary mortgage markets. Fannie also provided mortgage financing to 2.9 million homes and helped 10.6 million homeowners avoid foreclosures.
Fannie Mae reported first-quarter pre-tax net income of $8.1 billion on Thursday morning, compared to $7.6 billion from the previous quarter, as a result of strong credit results driven by an improving housing market. The enterprise’s resolution agreement with Bank of America, will contribute $880 billion to the quarterly profit, with more to come, Fannie Mae.
According to the earnings report the Fannie Mae “high-quality” new single-family book of business now accounts for 69% of its single-family guaranty book of business.
“We remain focused on building the new book of business,” Fannie CEO Tim Mayopoulos said on the call.
However, Mayopoulos said much-needed housing reform still awaits action from Congress. “Our goal is to have private capital come and take as much of this market as it can,” he said.
The government may feel less incentive to reduce the activities of Fannie Mae in the housing market. Fannie Mae will send $59.4 billion to Treasury by the end of next month under its support agreement dividend policy.
“Combined with Freddie, which is still analyzing the valuation of its deferred tax position, Treasury will get more than $65 billion this quarter,” wrote Jim Vogel, an analyst at FTN Financial in an email. “That is $55 billion more than officially expected and will cramp bill sales even more unless Treasury decides to float a higher cash position through the summer.”
Mayopoulos takes a more Fannie-centric look at the Treasury payment.
“Fannie Mae is not being recapitalized,” he said.
