Freddie Mac released its first earnings report of the coronavirus era by announcing $200 million in net income for the first quarter, down from $1.4 billion one year ago.
During the first quarter, Freddie Mac reported $138 billion in new activity for its single-family business and $10 billion for the multifamily side, adding that its single-family and multifamily guarantee portfolios were up year-over-year by 6% and 13%, respectively.
Freddie Mac stated that it provided roughly $152 billion in liquidity to the housing market during the first quarter, funding approximately 526,000 single-family homes – although nearly 309,000 of those transactions were refinance loans – plus more than 111,000 multifamily rental units.
Net interest income was $2.7 billion in the first quarter, compared with $3.1 billion in the first quarter of 2019. Credit enhancement coverage in the first quarter reached 58% for the single-family credit guarantee portfolio and 89% for the multifamily mortgage portfolio.
The serious delinquency rate for guaranteed single-family mortgages, meaning loans with payments more than 90 days overdue, was 0.60% and the multifamily rate was 0.08%.
In a statement issued with the earnings report, CEO David Brickman acknowledged the plummet by noting the government-sponsored enterprise went through a quarter that was “marked by unprecedented challenges to our country, our business and our markets – and I am very proud of how we have responded.”
The earnings report stated the company ended the quarter by maintaining “sufficient liquidity to meet its contractual obligations and continued to actively access the debt markets,” adding that it did not experience “any significant operational or technological issues associated with its pandemic response efforts despite more than 95% of its workforce working remotely.”
