After much speculation, Fannie Mae announced on Wednesday its first ever auction of nonperforming loans to qualified bidders. It includes a pool of approximately 3,200 loans totaling $786 million in unpaid principal balance.

CAPITAL HILL REPORT: Shortly before the U.S. Congress vacated the nation’s capital for its spring recess, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-ID, introduced legislation that would require all rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau be evaluated in the 10-year regulatory review process under the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act, which seeks to identify rules that are unnecessary, outdated and overly burdensome. The Dodd-Frank Act already requires the CFPB to similarly review every major rulemaking…

Despite the drought, a Fannie spokesman issued a statement saying, “Bank of America continues to be an important seller-servicer for Fannie Mae, including servicing a sizable book of loans that we own.”

The disclosure is buried in the details of Freddie’s recent 10-Q filing with Securities and Exchange Commission.

Although Fannie Mae is poised to begin auctioning off some of its nonperforming mortgages, the market continues to be dominated by smaller deals.

Fannie Mae indicated that this auction will be the kick-off to future sales.

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...