The unusual appointment of a senior advisor to replace Acting FHA Commissioner and Assistant Secretary of Housing Biniam Gebre is causing Republicans to sit up and take notice. Last week, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro tapped Edward Golding to head the FHA, not in an acting capacity, but as a “principal deputy assistant secretary.” The new title grants Golding broad powers to manage the FHA’s daily operations but does not come with the full authority of an FHA commissioner. For example, Golding is restricted from issuing final rules or notices of funding availability. He may not endorse mortgages for insurance that exceed $50 million, such as loans for hospitals and other multifamily structures. Moreover, it is unclear how much enforcement power Golding can wield. More interestingly, however, the process that facilitated Golding’s appointment allows ...
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securitized $151.1 billion of refi loans during the first quarter, a 34.8 percent increase from the end of 2014.
Mortgage and asset securitization started 2015 with improving issuance volume and a chance to reverse last year’s paltry output. A total of $335.1 billion of residential MBS and non-mortgage ABS were issued during the first three months of 2015, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. That was up 7.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014, and it was a big 34.3 percent jump from the first quarter of last year. The first quarter of 2014 was...[Includes two data charts]
A little known lender called Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions hopes to fund $540 million of product this year and generate the industry’s first nonprime non-agency MBS of the “new era” with financing provided by Nomura. According to industry officials who have viewed investor materials issued by the company – a copy of which was provided to Inside MBS & ABS – Nomura has even agreed to provide “gestation repo” warehouse credit to the privately held originator. One source who claims to have knowledge of the arrangement said...
At least three years have passed since Bank of America stopped selling new purchase-money loans into Fannie Mae securities, a drought that has benefitted at least one party: Freddie Mac. According to new figures compiled by Inside MBS & ABS, in the first quarter of 2015 BofA sold $9.57 billion of mortgages into Freddie securities, beating out Wells Fargo ($8.194 billion), which traditionally has ranked first in sales to both government-sponsored enterprises. Then again, there is...
Some MBS investors and industry analysts were taken aback when the latest prepayment rates on the government-sponsored enterprises’ risk-transfer deals were reported last week. The spike in prepayments was due to low interest rates in January, with the risk-sharing deals more susceptible to prepayments than agency MBS overall due to the collateral included in them. Prepayment rates were particularly high on Freddie Mac Structured Agency Credit Risk transactions. Analysts at Barclays Capital said M1 tranches on STACR 2014-DN3 and STACR 2014-HQ1 experienced large pay-downs in March due to “seemingly high” prepayments. STACR 2014-DN3 M1 paid down by 18.0 percent in March and STACR 2014-HQ1 M1 paid down by 8.4 percent. “While the jump in prepayment speeds could be expected after the rates rally earlier this year, the magnitude of the jump may seem...
In what could quickly become a “credit negative” for the subprime auto ABS sector, a top official from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau indicated last week that the agency is increasingly concerned about the sector and will crack down on practices deemed too risky for consumers. CFPB Deputy Director Steven Antonakes, in a speech before the Consumer Bankers Association, identified a loosening of credit in the subprime auto loan market as one of the emerging risks the bureau is paying close attention to. “From our standpoint, it is...
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