Ginnie Mae has passed the $1 billion mark for mortgage-backed securities issued through the Federal Home Loan Banks’ Mortgage Partnership Finance program. The MPF government MBS product was available initially to eligible participating members of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago. The Chicago FHLB launched the MPF program in 1997 to give approved participating members access to the secondary mortgage market. Specifically, the program provided an outlet other than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for member institutions to sell fixed-rate mortgage loans (conventional, government, or jumbo). Most of the institutions participating in the MPF are small banks, thrifts and credit unions with assets of less than $400 million. The MPF government MBS product arose from a 2015 partnership between Ginnie Mae and the Chicago FHLB to issue Ginnie MBS backed by ...

Securitization of USDA loans by Ginnie Mae fell in the fourth quarter of 2017. Approximately $19.9 billion of USDA loans were delivered into Ginnie MBS pools in 2017, notwithstanding a 9.2 percent drop from the previous quarter, agency data show. On the other hand, year-over-year securitization of rural housing loans with a government guarantee rose 5.8 percent from 2016. Top-ranked Freedom Mortgage saw its USDA loan deliveries to Ginnie drop 16.2 percent during the fourth quarter, while its USDA securitization volume rose a whopping 78.9 percent from the previous year. Overall, Freedom accounted for $3.6 billion of USDA loans pooled in Ginnie MBS last year. Second-place PennyMac closed the year with $3.1 billion of securitized USDA loans, while Wells Fargo reported a 13.1 percent drop in the final quarter to end 2017 with $1.4 billion of rural housing loans in Ginnie MBS. Chase Home Finance sprang out ... [ Chart ]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service has extended its two-tiered income limit pilot for the single-family housing programs as it works on a rulemaking change. Started in FY 2015, the pilot determines the area loan limits for USDA loans, using 80 percent of the FHA loan limits for forward single-family loans. Since FY 2003, RHS has set area loan limits using either one of two methods. The first method is based on the cost to construct a modest home as provided by a nationally recognized cost provider, plus the market value of an improved lot based on recent sales data. The second method uses loan limits by the state housing authority as long as the limits do not exceed 10 percent of the cost plus the market value of an improved lot. Regardless of the method used, the area loan limit may not exceed the FHA single-family mortgage limit. However, the FHA loan limits created a ...

Originations of jumbo mortgages declined across the three production channels in 2017, with retail posting the biggest decline, according to an Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis of survey responses to affiliated publication Inside Mortgage Finance. The survey respondents reported $234.21 billion in jumbo originations, down 18.0 percent from 2016, which represented about 79.4 percent of the total jumbo market. Among respondents, retail production ... [Includes one data chart]

Originations of interest-only mortgages declined for many of the major players in the sector in 2017, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. The declines were well beyond the slowdown in the overall volume of originations seen during the year. Among the top 15 IO lenders, six had lower production volume in 2017, with annual declines ranging from 6.7 percent to 61.1 percent. According to estimates by ... [Includes one data chart]

The Senate last week approved a regulatory relief bill that would grant qualified mortgage status to certain loans held in portfolio by smaller banks even if the mortgages would otherwise be non-QMs. The portfolio QM provision also has support in the House, but it has prompted concerns from some industry analysts. Moody’s Investors Service noted that if the provision becomes law, small banks won’t have to meet certain documentation requirements included in the Consumer ...

Angel Oak Prime Bridge, a lender offering short-term financing for house flippers, hopes to increase originations this year by more than five times the volume it produced in 2017. AOPB had more than $130.0 million in originations in 2017, according to Robert Malcahy, a senior vice president at the lender. He said the originations were focused in the Southeast. “In 2018, we have an expanded footprint and product offering targeted volume over $700.0 million,” Malcahy said ...

Angel Oak Capital Advisors is preparing to issue its first non-agency mortgage-backed security of the year backed by non-qualified mortgages, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Tiptree has an agreement to sell jumbo lender Luxury Mortgage in the second half of this year. The buyer and purchase price weren’t disclosed. Citadel Servicing recently loosened underwriting standards on a number of its nonprime ... [Includes four briefs]

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson told Congress it would cost approximately $500 million upfront to convert FHA’s archaic information technology systems to a modern technology platform.

Overall production of government-insured loans fell in all three origination channels in the fourth quarter as refinancing continued to decline in 2017. A survey of FHA, VA and rural housing lenders showed originations in retail, correspondent and broker conduits totaled $248.9 billion, down 11.8 percent from 2016. Correspondent production suffered the biggest quarterly decline, 14.9 percent from the third to the fourth quarter. Production in this channel also declined 4.8 percent for the full year. Approximately $139.3 billion of FHA and VA loans came through this channel last year. Notwithstanding the decline, the correspondent share of government-insured lending grew to 56.0 percent in 2017, up from 51.9 percent in 2016. Brokers saw their share of the government-insured market rise to 10.0 percent, even as quarterly and year-over-year originations declined by 2.0 percent and 10.7 percent ,,, [ Charts ]