Ginnie Mae has announced that its mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolio reached $1.5 trillion in unpaid principal balance (UPB). Ginnie Mae President Ted Tozer noted the unprecedented expansion of recent years. It took Ginnie Mae 42 years, from its founding in 1968, until July of 2010, to reach the $1 trillion mark. There are more than 9.1 million government-backed mortgage loans in the outstanding Ginnie Mae portfolio.
“This extraordinary growth, increasing our portfolio of outstanding MBS over thirty percent in just the last four years, is evidence that Ginnie Mae’s guarantee is playing an increasing role in stabilizing the secondary market, which is crucial to the housing recovery and the overall economy,” said Tozer. “Our role is critical because our unique business model—a public/private partnership—provides a safe, effective and government-backed channel for the flow of capital for U.S. mortgages, significantly limiting risks to the taxpayer and providing much needed capital for the government."
The rapid growth of Ginnie Mae’s portfolio is indicative of the corporation’s consistent financial stability, generating a profit for the U.S. government for more than 20 consecutive years, and the effectiveness of Ginnie Mae’s unique business model.
Currently, more than $1.05 trillion of the corporation’s unpaid principal balance is comprised of Ginnie Mae II single-family pools, while Ginnie Mae I pools total $451 million. Ginnie Mae multifamily pools represent more than $85 billion of the UPB. The Ginnie Mae Home Equity Conversion Mortgage-Backed Securities (HMBS), included in Ginnie Mae II single-family pools, is $48 billion.
“It’s not just the size of our portfolio, but also our consistently strong market share over the last few years, from less than 10 percent before the economic crisis, to a current share of more than 30 percent, that demonstrates the unique value the housing finance system places in the Ginnie Mae MBS,” said Mary Kinney, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Ginnie Mae.
