The Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) announced that it guaranteed more than $917 million of reverse mortgage MBS (HMBS) in October.

For the first 10 months of calendar 2009, Ginnie Mae provided nearly $5.702 billion of liquidity to the secondary market for reverse mortgages, compared to $1.278 billion for the first 10 months of 2008.

“Ginnie Mae – whose securities carry the full faith and credit of the U.S. government – has been quick to modify and create securitization products that provide additional liquidity to help stabilize the U.S. housing market," said Thomas R. Weakland, Ginnie Mae’s Acting Executive Vice President. "And for the past 11 months we’ve consistently shown – with industry-wide low Single-Family delinquency rates – that our conservative approach to risk-taking is working for U.S. taxpayers."

As more reverse mortgage lenders turn to Ginnie Mae as an outlet, most would expect FY 2010 issuance to increase. However, Ginnie Mae spokeswoman Gina Screen told the Reverse Mortgage Alert that it expects to securitize only $3 billion in home equity conversion mortgage-backed securities in FY 2010.