Mortgage originators licensed by state regulators produced fewer loans in 2018 than they had in the previous year but still took more market share away from depositories. A new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of call-report data from banks, credit unions and the National Multistate Licensing System found that state-licensed nonbanks accounted for 54.8% of mortgage originations last year. That was up 1.8 percentage points from 2017. [Includes two data charts.]

Freedom Mortgage, one of the largest non-bank lender/servicers in the nation, is ready to issue $250 million worth of debt at an eye-popping cost of 10.75%. Now comes the big question: What will it do with the cash?

Home mortgages that fail one of the basic tests to be classified as a qualified mortgage have become an increasingly large part of the agency market over the past few years, a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis reveals. [Includes one data chart.]

President Trump late Wednesday issued a memo ordering the Treasury Department to end the decade-long-plus historic conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and design a plan to overhaul the nation’s secondary mortgage market.

LendingHome recently issued a $219 million asset-backed security with fix-and-flip loans originated by the firm; Reliant Bancorp, Brentwood, TN, launched a correspondent purchase program for non-qualified mortgages in March; Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions expanded its office space in Dallas and Atlanta.

Four more expanded-credit mortgage-backed securities are set for pricing before the end of the first quarter, along with a prime non-agency MBS.

Verus Mortgage Capital and Chimera Investment Corp. are both set to issue non-agency mortgage-backed securities backed solely by loans for investment properties. The types of mortgages in the two deals differ. Loans in the Chimera MBS were eligible for delivery to the government-sponsored enterprises, but that was not the case with the Verus deal.

Redwood Trust is developing an outlet for mortgages that differ somewhat from traditional whole-loan sales. Officials at the real estate in-vestment trust have been working on the effort for months but haven’t formalized anything yet.

Goldman Sachs is set to issue a non-agency mortgage-backed security stacked with jumbo loans eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises. The deal will mark the bank’s return to the prime non-agency MBS market. The deal size is $230.60 million, according to presale reports published last week by DBRS and Moody’s Investors Service.

Industry participants are increasingly calling for the qualified mortgage “patch” to be addressed as part of broader efforts to overhaul the nation’s housing-finance sector.