Prepayment rates on non-qualified mortgages are higher than the rates seen on legacy non-agency mortgages and performance for new production is better, according to industry analysts. “Nonprime non-QM loans have exhibited high voluntary prepayment speeds, resulting from credit curing and high initial mortgage interest rates,” analysts at Deutsche Bank Securities said. The voluntary prepayment rate on non-QM mortgage-backed securities ... [Includes one data chart]

Issuance of mortgage securities backed by USDA loans dropped during the first three months of 2018. Approximately $4.03 billion of rural housing loans with a USDA guarantee were delivered in Ginnie Mae MBS during the first quarter, down 18.3 percent from the previous quarter. Agency data also showed an 11.7 percent decline in USDA securitization volume from the same period a year ago. Rural housing loans accounted for 1.5 percent of all loans securitized in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae pools and 2.8 percent of loans with private or government-backed mortgage insurance. Purchase loans comprised the bulk of USDA loans that were delivered into Ginnie MBS pools. PennyMac knocked Freedom Mortgage out of first place with a total of $753.3 million in securitized USDA loans despite a 10.4 percent decline in production. Freedom Mortgage accounted for $523.3 million of USDA loans pooled in ... [Charts]

Last October, HomeStreet cut 60 employees. In May, it put out for bid $5 billion of mortgage servicing rights….

Bank buyers of MSRs favor packages that are at least $2 billion in size…

Servicing brokers such as Mark Garland, Steve Harris and Tom Piercy are seeing new entrants to the MSR-buying market…

It might be said that OFHEO was a weak federal regulator...

Although federal banking regulators are still toiling with language that will ease restrictions on how much mortgage servicing rights can count toward Tier I capital, depositories are aggressively reasserting their presence in the MSR market.

Wells Fargo lost its spot as the top-ranked retail originator in the first quarter and recently agreed to sell 52 branches to Flagstar Bank, but company officials insist that the lender is poised for growth in the retail and correspondent channels.

Mortgages originated in recent years for investment properties have performed well, helped by improvements to underwriting standards after the financial crisis, although there are concerns about underwriting practices in the non-agency market.

Despite heralding the investment made by Thomas H. Lee Partners, Guaranteed Rate will not say how much the PE firm invested or how large of a stake it acquired…