Ginnie Mae’s mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolio topped $1.5 trillion in unpaid principal balance, the company announced this week. 

The government-backed company, which is the only securitizer of Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, also recently rebounded slightly from a five-year low in the supply of Home Equity Conversion Mortgage-Backed Securities (HMBS). In May, issuers created $582 million in new HMBS pools, in comparison to $396 million in April, New View Advisors reported based on its analysis of the data. 

But Ginnie Mae’s growth in MBS has increased rapidly; in the four years since it reached $1 trillion in July 2010, its MBS portfolio has grown 30%. 

“This extraordinary growth … 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,” Ginnie Mae President Ted Tozer said in a written release. 

More than $1.05 trillion of the corporation’s unpaid principal balance (UPB) is currently 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.

Written by Emily Study