Freddie Mac recovered $1.7 billion from its seller/servicers in the third quarter, taking in cash or getting bad loans off its books because firms that sold mortgages to the GSE bought them back.
In the second quarter, Freddie's take from buybacks was $1.4 billion.
Despite these gains, the government sponsored enterprise still had $5.6 billion in repurchase requests outstanding as of September 30, unchanged from the $5.6 billion in outstanding requests at the end of 2Q.
Freddie's third quarter financial report also says 32% of its buyback requests are more than 4 months old, up from 24% in the prior quarter.
The secondary market agency is trying to get some of its largest servicers to commit to plans for completing the repurchases. If that doesn't work, the GSE may seek other remedies.
"In the event of non-performance by a seller/servicer, we may seek partial recovery of amounts owed by the seller/servicer from the proceeds received from transferring the mortgage servicing rights to a different servicer," Freddie says.
During the first three quarters of this year, the GSE has collected $4.4 billion from repurchase requests.
The government-managed GSE reported its third quarter results Tuesday morning. Fannie Mae releases its 3Q results on Friday.
Freddie also collected $524 million in claims from private mortgage insurers in the third quarter, bringing its total take from MI firms to $1.2 billion for the year.
