Freddie Mac Records 3.5% Drop in May

""Freddie Mac"":http://www.freddiemac.com/ reported the decline of its overall mortgage portfolio by an annual rate of 3.5 percent over May, signaling losses for the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) in a mortgage market the federal officials want to hand back to private investors.

Issuing its monthly volume update, the GSE's origination volume for single-family refinance-loan purchases dropped to $13.3 billion over May, reflecting 58 percent of total mortgage purchases and issuances.

""Freddie"":http://www.freddiemac.com/ reported that volume levels sat at $16.6 billion in April, sharing 70 percent of all mortgage issuances and purchases. That same month, the GSE's mortgage-related securities and guarantees saw an annual decline at 2.4 percent.

The GSE modified 8,891 loans less than the nearly 11,000 it completed in April, marking a 55,398 loan modification period in May. The monthly update also recorded a decline in single-family seriously delinquent loans to 3.53 percent in the same month, contrasting with 4.06 percent in May last year.

Multifamily delinquency rates showed progress from last year, going up 0.29 percent, though still declining to 0.38 percent from 0.4 percent in April.