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 GSE still had $5.6 billion in repurchase requests outstanding as of Sept. 30, unchanged from the $5.6 billion in outstanding requests at the end of the second quarter.
Freddie's third quarter financial report also said that 32% of its buyback requests are more than four 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 might 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 said.
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 third quarter 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.
In other Freddie Mac news, the agency posted a $4.1 billion loss in the third quarter — after paying a $1.6 billion dividend to the U.S. Treasury — but also saw its overall "serious" delinquency rate fall to 3.8%.
The government controlled GSE said it would ask the U.S. Treasury for $100 million of capital assistance to keep its net worth position in the black.
It had a net worth deficit of $58 million at Sept. 30, compared to $1.7 billion at mid-year. (Excluding the payment to Treasury, it lost $2.5 billion in the quarter.)
The biggest factors contributing to its loss include a $3.7 billion provision for credit losses, a derivative charge of $1.1 billion, and security impairments of $1.1 billion.
Its serious delinquency ratio fell from 3.96% at June 30.
Freddie estimated that it purchased or guaranteed 25% of all home mortgages originated in the U.S. since Jan. 1.
The company has been a ward of the government since September 2008.
