Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, this week unveiled a mortgage-finance reform bill that would replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a private cooperatively-owned entity that would issue a new form of conventional MBS backed by a mix of public and government credit support. The “Housing Opportunities Move the Economy Forward Act” adds a few new twists to the notion of creating an explicit government MBS guaranty that would stand behind a first-loss position funded by the private sector. Rather than allow a variety of private-sector firms to issue these securities, as the bipartisan Senate bill would, Waters’ proposal would create a single, cooperatively-owned entity that would be open to all lenders. The regulator of this new market, the National Mortgage Finance Administration, would have...

Colony American Homes has come to market with a $513.6 million security backed by single-family rental homes, but some players in the space are starting to wonder if the returns on the bond will be anything special. Moody’s Investors Service and Kroll Bond Rating Agency rated the deal, which marks the second SFR securitization in four months. The other was a $479 million deal from Deutsche Bank and the Blackstone Group, which turned out to be oversubscribed. KBRA’s ratings on the Colony bond range...

Standard & Poor’s rated $11.72 billion of non-agency MBS issued in 2013, making it the most active rating service in the market by dollar volume, although DBRS rated considerably more deals, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. In its heyday, S&P used to rate more than 90 percent of new issuance of non-agency MBS, but in 2013 it accounted for just 40.0 percent of the market by dollar volume. DBRS wasn’t too far behind with a 36.0 percent share, followed by Kroll Ratings and Fitch Ratings. Moody’s Investors Service rated...[Includes two data charts]

The amount in dollars of non-agency MBS issuance from 2003-3Q13. Categories include prime, subprime, Alt A, S&D, seconds, re-MBS, other and total issuance. Quarterly data for 2012-4Q13 included. [Includes one data chart]

Fannie Mae this week released its STAR servicer rankings and hopefully a copy found its way to all those pesky regulators who think nonbank servicers can’t tell the difference between a debit and a credit.

If all goes as scheduled, the most prolific issuer of jumbo mortgage-backed securities since 2010 won’t issue a jumbo MBS in the first quarter of 2014, the first quarterly blank for the firm since the end of 2011. Redwood is planning to issue a $347.30 million jumbo MBS on April 2; the deal priced this week. It’s the first jumbo MBS from the real estate investment trust since November. Officials at Redwood said a lack of demand from investors has limited issuance of jumbo MBS ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay requirements and standards for qualified mortgages will prompt greater rating-service scrutiny of lenders that participate in the non-agency mortgage-backed security market. Fitch Ratings noted last week that its new criteria for non-agency MBS with mortgages that have loan applications that were received on or after Jan. 10 will require additional analysis, including an expanded review of underwriting processes ...

Bipartisan mortgage-reform legislation under consideration in the Senate could open significant opportunities for firms currently involved in the non-agency market, according to industry analysts. Firms with jumbo conduit operations and real estate investment trusts that invest in non-agency mortgage-backed securities could see their potential markets increase significantly under the proposed system. Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID, have proposed a ...

Bank of America this week agreed to settle lawsuits filed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency regarding non-agency mortgage-backed securities purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Eleven of the 18 non-agency MBS lawsuits filed by the FHFA in 2011 have now been settled and the claims against BofA and its affiliates were by far the largest. BofA said it agreed to make a total of $5.8 billion in payments to Fannie and Freddie as part of the settlement and spend $3.5 billion to ...

The monitor of the $25 billion national servicing settlement certified last week that the five participating banks completed their loss-mitigation obligations a year earlier than the three-year deadline set by the settlement. Regulators involved in the settlement continue to defend allowing the banks to complete a portion of their obligations by modifying mortgages in non-agency mortgage-backed securities. Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Residential Capital and Wells Fargo ...