Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac produced a total of $77.42 billion of new single-family mortgage-backed securities in August, their fourth consecutive monthly gain. August single-family MBS issuance was up 8.8 percent from the previous month at Fannie, and up 6.1 percent at Freddie. Their combined production represented a 7.8 percent increase from July. Although the two GSEs have seen steady growth in MBS issuance in recent months, production through the first eight months of 2017 was down 1.6 percent from a year ago. And other than January and February, every month in 2017 has yielded less new business than it did last year.