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.
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...
Originations of loans that don’t meet standards for qualified mortgages have been off to a slow start but officials at Impac Mortgage Holdings suggest that non-QM lending is poised for growth. Joseph Tomkinson, Impac’s chairman and CEO, said the government-sponsored enterprises’ dominance of mortgage originations has limited non-QM originations. “We knew going into this that it would be a slow growth,” he said this week during a call with investors ...
Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities issuance fell in the first quarter of 2015 with FHA volume slipping during the period, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending’s analysis of agency data.Ginnie MBS production in the first quarter totaled $79.8 billion, down from $80.6 billion in the 4Q14, despite a 29.3 percent increase from February to March. On the other hand, production was up 41.6 percent from a year ago.FHA-backed Ginnie MBS issuance dropped 3.1 percent in the first quarter from 4Q14, ending the period with $39.9 billion. Year-over-year volume rose 22.0 percent from the previous year. On the other hand, refinancing increased to $12.3 billion from $7.8 billion during the same stretch. VA securitization totaled $35.5 billion, up from $33.6 billion quarter-over-quarter, powered by refinance loans. Rural housing securitization totaled $4.2 billion in the first quarter, down from $5. 7 billion in 4Q14. Securitized FHA purchase loans rose 7.7 percent in March from February, while ... [3 charts].
The Department of Veterans Affairs will continue removing barriers to delivering home-loan benefits to veterans and service members in 2015, focusing more on further improvements in appraisal and servicing. “It’s going to be geared around improving on the things we have already done,” said Mike Frueh, director of the VA Home Loan Guaranty program. VA loan originations are on the upswing and the agency wants to maintain the trend by getting more vets and active-duty personnel into the program. Last year, 18 percent of VA loans were to active-duty service members and 82 percent to veterans. Frueh said the VA program is by far the better deal. Interest rates are lower on a VA loan than on conventional loans and, generally requires no downpayment, he noted. In addition, VA loans do not have mortgage insurance. Based on the volume of VA loans originated in 2014, veteran borrowers ...
The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General has finalized settlements with two direct endorsement lenders to resolve allegations of violating FHA underwriting requirements. Golden First Mortgage Corp. and Group One Mortgage agreed to pay a total of $36.41 million to the federal government in reparation for losses incurred by the FHA on the defaulted loans. Based in Great Neck, NY, Golden First, a privately held company, and its owner/president, David Movtady, allegedly falsely certified to FHA and HUD that the loans the company endorsed for insurance met all FHA requirements. This went on from 2002 through 2010, the OIG alleged. The OIG accused the company and Movtady of violating the False Claims Act, which prohibits acts to defraud the federal government and which has been instrumental in ...
The Department of Veterans Affairs is updating its residual-income tables, with an eye to publishing revised guidelines in 2016. The last time the VA calculated and published the residual-income guidelines was in the 1990s, and a lot has changed since then, according to Mike Frueh, director of the VA Home Loan Guaranty program. Residual income is the monthly household income that remains after all primary obligations – mortgage and escrows, car payments, credit card bills, student loans, among others – have been paid. VA will not back a loan to a vet or service member if they do not meet or exceed residual-income requirements. The residual-income threshold varies by family size, borrower location and other compensating factors. Calculations for residual income vary for the Northwest Region, Midwest Region, South Region and West Region of the country. Frueh said they are ...
Beginning June 27, the FHA will require electronic appraisals for single-family forward and reverse mortgages to be delivered through an online electronic submission portal prior to endorsement. The Electronic Appraisal Delivery (EAD) portal is a web-based platform that would allow paperless submissions of single-family home loan appraisals, cutting down loan processing time significantly. FHA lenders and their authorized representatives can access the EAD portal by using electronic credentials and showing they are ready to use the new technology. Only appraisals that are compliant with FHA appraisal and data delivery guidelines can be uploaded to the portal. Lenders will be notified of a successful upload or if they need to correct and resubmit an appraisal. Once an appraisal is successfully submitted to the portal, FHA Connection will pull EAD appraisal data and pre-fill certain data fields in the ...
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