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Fannie Mae posts 29th straight quarter of profitability amid GSE shakeup by Sarah Wolak for HousingWire

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Fannie Mae announced its first quarter 2025 earnings today, reporting a net income of $3.7 billion, which added to the company’s 29th consecutive quarter of positive earnings. As of March 31, 2025, Fannie’s net worth reached $98.3 billion — a nearly 20% increase annually.

During the government-sponsored enterprise’s (GSE) earnings call on Wednesday morning, FHFA director Bill Pulte shared opening remarks about Fannie Mae’s priorities.

“Our current focus at Fannie Mae is on operational efficiency and ensuring that Fannie Mae is a world-class operator,” Pulte said. “While assets are significant, there remains [a] great opportunity to trim fat, turn the business around, generate more earnings and do so all while ensuring safety and soundness.”

He continued, “A profitable Fannie Mae, one with a strong balance sheet and strong capital focused on delighting customers, means a safe and sound U.S. mortgage market.”

Fannie’s continued profits come as the mortgage industry itself struggles. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported the average IMB reported a pre-tax net loss of $40 on each loan they originated in the fourth quarter. Conditions haven’t dramatically improved in the first quarter.

The GSE posted $76 billion in liquidity provided in Q1 2025, which enabled the financing of approximately 287,000 home purchases, refinancings and rental units.

Fannie Mae President and CEO Priscilla Almondovar shared a broad update of the economic environment, commenting that “high home prices continue to be the primary sticky point for buyers.”

She continued, “The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.8% during the quarter, slightly up from 6.6% in the last quarter. Total annualized home sales rose slightly to an estimated 4.8 million units in the first quarter, though, remained well below the levels seen before COVID…Nationally, home prices increased 5.2% for the 12 months ended March 31. Single-family mortgage market originations were an estimated $378 billion, a 16% increase from the first quarter of 2024.”

Fannie Mae’s CFO, Chryssa Halley, gave a more in-depth glimpse into the company’s business activity. “Our guaranteed book stood at $4.1 trillion as of the end of the quarter. This included $76 billion of new business acquisitions. In single-family, we acquired $64 billion in loans this quarter, up 3% year over year.”

Halley added that acquisitions “continued to be muted” due to a tough mortgage interest rate environment, a lack of supply and housing affordability constraints.

Single-family and multifamily results

During Q1 2025, Fannie acquired approximately 144,000 single-family purchase loans, of which approximately half were for first-time homebuyers, and approximately 50,000 single-family refinance loans, shared Almodovar during the earnings call.

Single-family conventional acquisition volume was $64.3 billion in Q1 2025, compared with $62.3 billion in Q1 2024. Purchase acquisition volume, of which approximately half was for first-time homebuyers, decreased to $50.1 billion in Q1 2025 from $53.0 billion in Q1 2024.

Refinance acquisition volume was $14.2 billion in Q1 2025, an increase from $9.3 billion in Q1 2024.

The average single-family conventional guaranty book of business decreased by $21.3 billion compared with Q1 2024, to $3.6 trillion in Q1 of 2025. Halley added that the credit profile of Fannie’s single family book remained strong with a weighted average mark to market loan to value ratio of 50% and a weighted average credit score at origination of 753.

New multifamily business volume was $11.8 billion in Q1 2025, compared with $10.1 billion in Q1 2024. The company also financed approximately 93,000 units of multifamily rental housing, in which a majority were affordable to households earning at or below 120% of area median income.

“Our multifamily book as of the quarter end had a weighted average original loan-to-value ratio of 63% and a weighted average debt service coverage ratio of 2.0 times,” Halley added.

How is the rest of 2025 shaping up for Fannie Mae?

Halley shed more light on Fannie’s predictions for the remainder of 2025.

“Our economists currently expect that mortgage rates will average 6.5% for 2025. Total home sales are expected to improve slightly to 4.9 million units compared to the 4.7 million units seen for the full year of 2024,” she said. “They currently project year over year, home price growth will be 4.1% in 2025 as measured by the Fannie Mae home price index, compared to 5.3% in 2024.”

Fannie Mae’s economists also forecast single-family mortgage originations of about $2.0 trillion in 2025, up from an estimated $1.7 trillion in 2024, with purchases forecasted to make up 73% of single-family mortgage originations this year, Halley told investors.

The GSE expects multifamily rent growth to be in the 2% to 2.5% range in 2025, unchanged from its predictions announced in its last earnings call.

“Separately, we believe vacancy rates could rise to 6.25% this year, and we forecast multi-family market originations between $325 billion and $365 billion in 2025, up from $310 billion in 2024,” Halley said.

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