First Republic Bank maintained its lead as the top contributor to jumbo mortgage-backed securities issued in the first quarter of 2015, according to a ranking by Inside Nonconforming Markets. First Republic was identified as contributing $1.43 billion to jumbo MBS issued during the quarter, accounting for 31.0 percent of all jumbo MBS activity. The bank was also the top jumbo MBS contributor for all of 2014, with $1.46 billion in identified contributions ... [Includes one data chart]

Credit Suisse and Redwood Trust, the two dominant jumbo mortgage-backed securities issuers since 2010, continue to differ in terms of jumbo MBS offerings. While their latest deals include a number of similarities involving credit characteristics, the Redwood deal includes a relatively high share of non-qualified mortgages. The $356.45 million Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2015-2 received AAA ratings with credit enhancement of 5.00 percent on the senior tranche. That’s the lowest ...

Ocwen Financial’s renewed focus on the non-agency market includes plans for much higher margins than what the nonbank produced servicing and originating agency mortgages. However, officials at Ocwen stressed this week that the nonbank is not completely exiting the agency servicing market. Michael Bourque, an executive vice president and CFO at Ocwen, reported that the nonbank had a pre-tax income margin of 33 percent in 2012. By 2014, Ocwen’s margin had declined to ...

Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase account for the vast majority of bank holdings of negative amortization mortgages, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Bank exposure to negative amortization mortgages continues to dwindle as originations of such loans largely stopped after the financial crisis. Large chunks of the holdings at Wells and Chase are due to acquisitions of Wachovia and Washington Mutual, respectively ... [Includes one data chart]

Walter Investment Management’s Green Tree Servicing agreed to pay $48 million for consumer redress and a $15 million civil money penalty due to a settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. The federal regulators alleged that Green Tree failed to honor modifications for loans transferred from other servicers, among other issues. The regulators said a large number of loans Green Tree acquired from ... [Includes two briefs]

One thing investors and analysts look for is revenue growth and Ocwen Financial did not deliver. But at least all of its lending licenses are intact...

VA home loan guaranty originations nearly caught up with FHA single-family volume in the first quarter of 2015, thanks to a strong pickup in veteran loan refinancings, an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of Ginnie Mae issuance data indicated. Refi loans accounted for 58.5 percent of VA loans securitized in the first quarter compared to just 34.4 percent of FHA loans in Ginnie mortgage-backed securities. Approximately $35.0 billion in VA loans were securitized in Ginnie Mae MBS in the first quarter, up 5.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014. On the other hand, $35.6 billion of FHA loans were securitized during the same period, down 1.8 percent from the prior quarter. Of the VA loans in Ginnie MBS, $14.5 billion were purchase mortgages, mostly delivered through retail and loan correspondents. Brokers accounted for only 8.5 percent of the purchase loans. Securitized VA purchase volume, however, was ... [2 charts]

Quicken Loan’s lawsuit against the government could help provide some certainty to lenders as to the proper legal standard for evaluating compliance with FHA rules and whether loan sampling is a permissible post-endorsement review strategy, according to legal experts. The adjudication of Quicken’s case against the Department of Justice in a public forum should clarify FHA policies, procedures, and the degree of future liability risks, experts said. Quicken Loans, the top FHA lender in 2014, sued the Department of Justice in federal court in Detroit April 17, accusing it of high-pressure tactics to admit wrongdoing and of using a small sample of flawed loans as a basis for claims under the False Claims Act. Up to that time, Quicken Loans had been the subject of an ongoing DOJ probe, which began three years earlier, in relation to its FHA lending practices. Quicken also asserted that, before filing its lawsuit ...

FHA jumbo loan production dropped significantly in 2014, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of agency data. The volume of jumbo loans insured by the FHA – loan amounts exceeding $417,000 up to the national ceiling of $625,500 – fell 41.9 percent from the prior year, and 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 from the previous quarter. FHA jumbo production for 2014 totaled $10.5 billion, with purchase loans accounting for nearly 80 percent of volume and fixed-rate loans comprising 87.1 percent of jumbos originated last year. Seventy-two percent of lenders saw their jumbo volume decline, including Provident Savings Bank, which suffered the largest year-over-year drop (84.9 percent). An analysis of FHA endorsements by loan amount show that loans above $417,000 up to $499,000 accounted for 2.12 percent of loans endorsed in the first quarter. Additionally, loans from $500,000 to ... [1 chart]

A high percentage of VA loans are not closing on time, potentially creating a disincentive for borrowers to use the product and opt for the competition instead, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance’s HousingPulse Tracking Survey. Data showed that the share of VA loans closing on time declined to 55 percent in March 2015 from 70 percent in April 2014. This suggests that 45 percent of VA loans are experiencing serious delays in closing. “For VA, this is a significant change for the worse,” said Tom Popik, designer of the survey. The VA’s average closing time is 41 days as of March this year, up from around 39 percent a year ago. Comparatively, 75 percent of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans with private mortgage insurance are closing on time as of March 2015, up from 68 percent a year ago. When delayed, VA closing takes a lot longer, 29 additional days, up from ...