Freddie Mac Reports Recovery in Secondary Market Activity

Secondary market activity at ""Freddie Mac"":http://www.freddiemac.com/ recovered somewhat in January, but not enough to keep the mortgage giant's portfolio from shrinking.

According to Freddie Mac's ""Monthly Volume Summary for January"":http://www.freddiemac.com/investors/volsum/pdf/0113mvs.pdf, the GSE's portfolio contracted at an annualized rate of 4.8 percent to start 2013. While the overall portfolio is still on the decline, it was an improvement from December, which saw a 12.9 percent rate of shrinkage.

As of the end of January, the portfolio's ending balance was about $1.95 trillion, down from $1.96 trillion previously.

Purchase and issuance volume was about $43.1 billion in January, up more than $10 billion over December.

According to Freddie Mac, mortgage-related securities and other guarantee commitments contracted at an annualized rate of 2.5 percent, faring better than December's negative growth rate of 12.6 percent.

Single-family refinance loan purchase and guarantee volume was $34.5 billion, representing about 80 percent of total mortgage portfolio purchases and issuances.

Meanwhile, the single-family serious delinquency rate fell to 3.20 percent in January, down from 3.25 percent at the end of 2012. The multifamily delinquency rate dropped a single basis point to 0.18 percent.

Freddie Mac reported 7,416 loan modifications for the month.