New securitizations backed by commercial mortgages declined during the third quarter of 2015, but the market at the nine-month mark has nearly matched total issuance for all of last year, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. Some $49.62 billion of income-property mortgages were securitized during the third quarter of 2015, down 15.8 percent from the second quarter. However, with $162.18 billion of commercial mortgage securities issuance through the first nine months of 2015, the market is poised to reach its highest annual volume since the financial crisis when the year ends. Both sides of the market – non-agency CMBS and agency multifamily MBS – saw...[Includes one data table]

In late December, issuers of new non-agency MBS will become subject to new risk-retention requirements. It’s not clear whether anyone will notice. The vast majority of loans securitized in jumbo MBS over the past few years meet the qualified-mortgage standard. And because federal regulators opted to synchronize the QM standard with the separate qualified residential-mortgage standard, jumbo MBS backed entirely by QMs will be exempt from the 5 percent risk-retention requirement. When the final rule came out, Redwood Trust backed...

Beach Point Capital Management early next week will issue a roughly $75 million MBS collateralized by nonprime mortgages that were originated over the past year by Citadel Loan Servicing, Irvine, CA, according to officials briefed on the transaction. As Inside MBS & ABS went to press this week, certain details on the security were beginning to leak out, including the fact that Nomura Securities “is running the book” on the deal, said one source. Wells Fargo will be the custodian and backup servicer. The privately held Citadel will continue to service the underlying loans. The yield on the private-place bond is...

Banks and nonbanks, in general, are doing a better job of servicing “challenged” mortgages and MBS these days, according to a new report from Fitch Ratings. However, concerns remain. Fitch noted that residential servicing costs “continue to rise in concert with increased compliance focus and enhanced regulatory scrutiny.” Moreover, “Higher regulatory capital requirements may become a factor too, especially for smaller servicers.” Over the past two years, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae have all ushered...

A 10 basis point surcharge on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranty fees that went into effect in 2012 could end up being extended for another five years as lawmakers on Capitol Hill look for money to back the federal government’s Highway Trust Fund. The 10 percent increase in the government-sponsored enterprises’ g-fees was designed to pay for an extension of a federal payroll tax cut. It is currently scheduled to run to 2021, generating $35.7 billion in revenue, according to the Congressional Budget Office. With transportation funding set to expire Oct. 29, the House this week approved...

Freddie Mac will begin creating new “mirror” securities that will play a key role in how the government-sponsored enterprise will allow investors to exchange existing Freddie participation certificates for new single securities. The mirror securities will be held in a Federal Reserve account and will not increase the outstanding principal balance of Freddie MBS, the GSE explained in an update on the exchange program. The mirror securities will track existing Freddie MBS but substitute a 55-day payment cycle for Freddie’s current 45-day cycle. When an investor exchanges part or all of an existing 45-day security for a new 55-day single security that’s interchangeable with Fannie Mae single securities, Freddie will pay...

The Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy lives to die another day, as the Fed’s Open Market Committee opted this week to hold the line on a rate increase, as it has since December 2008, leaving investors and other market participants to try to read the tea leaves as best they can. “To support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability, the committee today reaffirmed its view that the current 0 to 0.25 percent target range for the federal funds rate remains appropriate,” the FOMC said in its much-anticipated statement, issued mid-week. In making its decision about whether to raise the target range at its next meeting, scheduled for mid-December, the Fed said...

It makes sense that Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac g-fees should be used to pay for highway repairs. After all, people drive on highways to reach their homes which were bought with mortgages likely guaranteed by the two.

JPMorgan Chase was set to issue its latest jumbo mortgage-backed security as Inside Nonconforming Markets went to press. The bank’s sixth jumbo MBS of the year was slated to be a $344.87 million deal, according to presale reports. Chase continued to stock its jumbo MBS with loans that have seasoned a while longer than other issuers. Loans in JPMorgan Mortgage Trust 2015-6 had seasoned for an average of nine months, according to DBRS. Nearly 20 percent of the mortgages appear to have application dates from before Jan. 10, 2014. All of the loans subject to standards for qualified mortgages were deemed...

While a number of jumbo lenders reduced their reliance on mortgage brokers in the years after the financial crisis, Primary Capital Mortgage has sourced a large share of its production from brokers. And the lender has earned strong assessments from rating services in the process. Moody’s Investors Service said 71 percent of the jumbo mortgages PCM originated between the second quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015 were through brokers. The lender originated $114 million in jumbos in that span. The majority of PCM’s originations are agency mortgages. The rating service said...