by Calculated Risk on 11/03/2015 11:44:00 AM

Note: Fannie Mae is scheduled to report on Thursday.

From Freddie Mac:

Freddie Mac today reported a net loss of $475 million for the third quarter of 2015, compared to net income of $4.2 billion for the second quarter of 2015. The company also reported a comprehensive loss of $501 million for the third quarter of 2015, compared to comprehensive income of $3.9 billion for the second quarter of 2015.

“For the first time in four years, Freddie Mac had a net loss in the most recent quarter. This $0.5 billion loss was caused mainly by the accounting associated with our use of derivatives, whereby the derivatives are marked-tomarket but many of the assets and liabilities being hedged are not. The resulting difference between GAAP reporting and the actual underlying economics, which has created significant GAAP income volatility in our quarterly financial statements, reduced the after tax earnings in the quarter by an estimated $1.5 billion as interest rates declined significantly” said Donald H. Layton, chief executive officer. “In the prior quarter, we had the opposite result with a $1.5 billion positive contribution to earnings as rates rose significantly.”

And on Real Estate Owned (REO):

Our single-family REO inventory (measured in number of properties) declined 31% from December 31, 2014 to September 30, 2015, primarily due to our loss mitigation efforts and a larger proportion of properties being sold to third parties at foreclosure auction.
...
Our REO acquisition activity is disproportionately high for certain types of mortgage loans, including mortgage loans with certain higher-risk characteristics. For example, while the percentage of interest-only and Alt-A mortgage loans in our single-family credit guarantee portfolio, based on UPB, was approximately 1% and 3%, respectively, at September 30, 2015, the percentage of our REO acquisitions during the nine months ended September 30, 2015 that had been financed by either of these mortgage loan types represented approximately 20% of our total REO acquisitions, based on mortgage loan amount prior to acquisition. In addition, mortgage loans from our 2005-2008 Legacy single-family book comprised approximately 69% of our REO acquisition activity during the nine months ended September 30, 2015.

As of September 30, 2015, approximately 52% of our REO properties were unable to be marketed because the properties were occupied, under repair, or are located in states with a redemption period and 13% of the properties were being evaluated for listing and determination of our sales strategy. As of September 30, 2015, approximately 22% of our REO properties were listed and available for sale and 13% of our inventory was pending the settlement of sales. Though it varied significantly in different states, the average holding period of our single-family REO properties, excluding any redemption period, was 251 days and 221 days for our REO dispositions during the nine months ended September 30, 2015 and the nine months ended September 30, 2014, respectively.
emphasis added

Notice that most of the REO is from loans originated in 2005 through 2008, and they are heavily Alt-A loans.

Click on graph for larger image.

Here is a graph of Freddie Real Estate Owned (REO).

REO inventory decreased in Q3 for Freddie, and and inventory is down 31% year-over-year.   For Freddie, this is the lowest level of REO since Q4 2007.

Short term delinquencies are at normal levels, but there are still a fairly large number of legacy properties in the foreclosure process with long time lines in judicial foreclosure states.