The sale of mortgage-backed securities in 2009 is down by 70 per cent from the salad days of 2006 and 2007, when annual volumes reached $40 billion.This estimate allows for the AOFM-assisted sale of mortgage bonds, with RMBS issuance over the year to date at $12.1 billion.Leave the AOFM out and volumes are down 95 per cent, and as noted above, comprised only four deals for the year to early December.It may yet be a long time before the boom-time volumes are seen again.Many of the former buyers of RMBS, the conduits and SIVs, are gone. Even the cash trusts are now constrained by tighter investment mandates and liquidity requirements. Against structural change of this magnitude, the formal allocation of a further A$8.0 billion to AOFM for investment in Australian RMBS during the week will not go a long way. But it seems reasonable to expect that 2010 RMBS issuance volumes will exceed those of 2009, if current trends continue.