A Chicago police officers’ pension fund has filed suit against Bank of America and U.S. Bancorp, claiming that the two banks failed to protect investors during their turn as MBS trustees and violated an obscure, seven-decade-old federal securities statute. The lawsuit, brought last week by the Chicago Policeman’s Annuity & Benefit Fund, said that BofA, and later U.S. Bank as successor trustee, “regularly disregarded their contractual and statutory duties” by failing to oversee some 41 Washington Mutual trusts backed by home loans. “By failing to perform their duties, defendants have caused MBS holders...

Lack of procedures for resolving repurchase conflicts between non-agency MBS investors and providers of representations and warranties could negatively affect the rating for any newly issued residential MBS, according to a new analysis by Moody’s Investors Service. The volume of unresolved repurchase conflicts between MBS investors and reps and warranties providers can be gauged by the number of lawsuits and the growing dollar value of settlements, said Moody’s analyst Kathryn Kelbaugh. The issue was thrust into the spotlight recently because 82 percent of the loans backing the $746 million non-agency...

MBS Business Surges in 1Q 2012 Due to RefiGSE single-family securitizations leapt 16.2 percent during the first three months of 2012 compared to the previous quarter as mortgage lenders delivered some $303.9 billion in home loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s securitization programs, according to an Inside The GSEs analysis. The first quarter’s flood of new business marked the fourth straight quarterly increase in production of GSE mortgage-backed securities after the market tanked in the second quarter of 2011.

Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase reclassified more than $3 billion of second-lien mortgages as nonperforming loans in the first quarter of 2012, a move other banks have copied. Both Wells and JPMorgan said that federal guidance from late January was behind the change. Wells characterized $1.7 billion of subordinate home-equity loans as nonperforming and JPMorgan assigned $1.6 billion to that status. “We do not view this as a material shift in the performance of these loans or the reserving methodology,” Fitch Ratings wrote. “However, increased regulatory scrutiny of second liens may continue to...

A subsidiary of Credit Suisse Group issued a $741.94 million non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security at the end of March, the first jumbo issuance by a company other than Redwood Trust since 2008. CSMC Trust 2012-CIM1 included some unique characteristics prompting criticism from Fitch Ratings and speculation about whether Credit Suisse will issue more non-agency MBS. Standard & Poor’s and DBRS placed AAA ratings on the senior bond in the privately-placed deal based on 8.00 percent credit enhancement. Fitch – which was paid to provide feedback on the deal but ultimately was not selected to rate the deal – said the credit enhancement for the AAA tranche should have been 9.75 percent ...

Springleaf Finance completed another subprime mortgage-backed security comprised of vintage performing loans this week, its second such MBS in eight months. However, the firm is facing significant financial difficulties and stopped offering mortgages at the beginning of the year. The $473.01 million subprime MBS received a AAA rating from Standard & Poor’s, just like Springleaf’s $496.86 million subprime MBS in September. As with the previous security, the latest MBS was backed by seasoned performing loans, an average of six years-old in this case ...

First Republic Bank – the primary source of loans for Redwood Trust non-agency mortgage-backed securities – has received high marks for its jumbo originations. FRB’s originations are concentrated around San Francisco, largely for wealthy borrowers. After relying on CitiMortgage for all of the loans in its first post-bust non-agency MBS issuance, Redwood has relied heavily on FRB. The lender accounted for a slight majority of the four securities totaling $1.41 billion Redwood has issued in 2011 and at the beginning of 2012 ...

The FHA and Ginnie Mae continue to face risk-management challenges despite steps they have taken to better assess, manage and minimize risk, according to an updated report from the Government Accountability Office. The report said recommendations the GAO made in a previous assessment to improve risk management have not been fully implemented at either of the agencies. Both agencies, however, said efforts are underway to implement GAO recommendations. The FHA is getting more scrutiny from Congress because of the weak condition of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, whose capital reserve ratio has ...

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae produced a solid $384.9 billion of new single-family MBS during the first quarter of 2012, including a surge in new issuance in March. But industry analysts said they had been bracing for more. Combined, the three agencies saw new single-family MBS production rise 14.0 percent from the fourth quarter of last year. Issuance in the opening round of 2012 was 12.9 percent ahead of the volume produced in the same period last year. It was the strongest quarter for new agency MBS since the end of 2010. Fannie dominated the agency market, accounting...(Includes one data chart)

New issuance of real estate mortgage investment conduits backed by agency MBS rose 6.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011 to the first three months of this year, about half the rate of increase in underlying MBS production, according to an Inside MBS & ABS ranking. Fannie Mae got the early lead with $33.5 billion in new REMIC production, a gain of 8.4 percent from the fourth quarter. Freddie Mac ranked second, but its REMIC volume was down 1.5 percent from the previous period and off 50.7 percent from year-ago levels. Ginnie Mae posted a significant 18.1 percent...(Includes one data chart)