Fannie Mae, the largest provider of multifamily mortgage financing, issued $16.7 billion in multifamily mortgage-backed securities in the first nine months of 2011, bypassing total issuance for 2010. To date, the government-sponsored enterprise is on pace to issue $20 billion multifamily MBS by year-end. The GSE provides liquidity to the markets by securitizing multifamily loans creating cash flow through investors. In the first nine months of 2011, Fannie re-securitized $4.1 billion of delegated underwriting and servicing MBS. “Given the volatile market environment, agency CMBS is thriving. Fannie Mae’s total activity, including MBS issuance, GeMS issuance and portfolio sales was the highest of any quarter this year. Over the past two years, we have seen a significant increase in securities available for trading. Our multifamily MBS outstanding now exceeds $90 billion,” said Kimberly Johnson, vice president of multifamily capital markets. In just the third quarter of 2011, new multifamily MBS business volumes at Fannie grew to $6.4 billion. Write to Kerri Panchuk.