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Another SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) has come to life, this one headed by Jay Levine, chairman of One Main Financial. One of the goals of Cascade Acquisition Corp. is to explore investment opportunities in housing and alternative lending. Cascade has raised $200 million...

In its recent S-1 filing with the SEC, AmeriHome Mortgage notes it hopes to expand its origination channel offerings (it’s mostly a correspondent buyer of residential loans) and has designs on new products but only if “acceptable levels of risk” are involved. Non-QM lending perhaps? Over the past four years, the privately held nonbank has sold $1.5 billion in mortgages to its secondary market partners, Apollo and Athene...

AmeriHome also disclosed that since the pandemic started, the company has increased its FICO score minimums and reduced the holding period between when its purchases loans and sells them to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

AUCTION NOTICE: RAMS Mortgage Capital is offering a $19 million portfolio of super jumbo mortgages collateralized by New York properties. The weighted average coupon is 4.0%, the current LTV 93.4%. Bids are due today.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “If Ocwen can come back from the ashes, others can. After all, we’re talking about homeownership, the American dream.” – Paul Hindman, a principal in Grid Financial.

Delve Into the Channel Usage of Almost 1,600 Lenders

From the big players like Wells Fargo and Quicken to smaller community banks and credit unions, see what channel combinations are being used to fill the pipeline. Inside Mortgage Finance’s Agency Channel Analysis reports on the volume of originations that lenders sourced from each channel for delivery to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae. The data is ranked by the lender’s overall volume and is accompanied by a breakdown within channel by purpose, as well as averages by channel for such loan characteristics as FICO score, debt-to-income ratio, loan-to-value ratio and loan size.