The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into certain single-family rental securitizations and is requesting information from market participants, including Green River Capital, a subsidiary of a private mortgage insurance company. The investigation first came to light when Radian Group disclosed in a recent 10-Q filing that Green River received a letter from the SEC requesting information regarding broker price opinions that GRC provided on properties included in SFR transactions. Green River, which falls under Radian’s Clayton Holdings affiliate, is...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are soliciting industry feedback on a proposal designed to make their mainstay credit-risk transfer deals more accessible for real estate investment trusts and, to a lesser extent, overseas investors. REITs have nibbled at the CRT debt notes issued by the two government-sponsored enterprises over the past few years, but restrictions on their holdings of so-called non-REIT assets have limited their involvement. The GSEs, with the backing of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, have come up...
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt is prepared to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to build some type of capital buffer to avoid a Treasury draw that could weaken investor confidence. But some lawmakers vehemently disagreed with his views during a hearing in the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week. Watt reiterated his concern about the declining capital buffer, which is scheduled to reach zero by 2018 under the preferred stock purchase agreements that set the terms of the conservatorships of the two government-sponsored enterprises. With no capital buffer, Fannie and Freddie would be forced...
Investors had a strong appetite for new non-agency MBS in the first quarter of 2017, according to issuers. “I am continuously amazed by how quickly we bring a deal out and how quickly the senior bonds gets sold,” Matthew Lambiase, president and CEO of Chimera Investment, said during the real estate investment trust’s earnings call for the first quarter. Chimera issued...
Industry attorneys are warning about a “third wave” of Lehman Brothers Holdings (LBHI) MBS trust claims against mortgage lenders and brokers based on the firm’s latest bankruptcy filing. Attorneys with the firm American Mortgage Law Group said Lehman Brothers for several years has been threatening to file residential MBS trust claims against the mortgage industry to counter trustee claims filed against LBHI in bankruptcy in 2009. The wait is...
An affiliate of NMI Holdings, Emeryville, CA, has issued a $211.3 million, 10-year credit-linked bond aimed at laying off risk at its mortgage insurance affiliate National MI. The notes were issued by NMI affiliate Oaktown Re Ltd. in three tranches: $98.61 million that filled the M-1 class, $98.61 million (M-2), and $14.1 million (B-1). The yields, respectively, are LIBOR plus 225 basis points, LIBOR plus 400 basis points, and LIBOR plus 575 bps. According to Robert Smith, National MI senior vice president of pricing and portfolio analytics, investors that bought the credit-linked notes were...
Issuance of ABS backed by nonprime personal installment loans is expected to increase, according to S&P Global Ratings. The rating service hasn’t assigned AAA ratings to such ABS, though S&P said it will approach each deal on a case-by-case basis. Between 2013 and 2016, $10.50 billion of ABS backed by branch-based unsecured personal installment loans was issued, according to S&P. The rating service highlighted the sector recently, noting that personal installment loans don’t receive as much attention as marketplace lending, which had $15.10 billion in MBS and ABS issuance between 2013 and 2016. “Branch-based fixed-rate, fixed-term unsecured personal installment loans may not be...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to shrink their retained investment portfolios in the first quarter of this year by focusing on paring their MBS holdings. The two government-sponsored enterprises held a combined $560.04 billion in their retained mortgage portfolios at the end of March. That was down 1.9 percent from the previous period and 16.7 percent below year-ago levels. At their current pace, Fannie and Freddie are...[Includes one data table]
Redwood Trust posted $37.0 million of net income in the first quarter of 2017, up 45.8 percent from the previous quarter and more than double the net income the real estate investment trust reported for the first quarter of 2016. Income from Redwood’s mortgage-banking activities was boosted by higher loan purchase volume and strong demand in the secondary market for jumbo mortgages. Redwood purchased jumbo mortgages with a total unpaid principal balance of ...
RSS