The Royal Bank of Scotland is shutting down its U.S. mortgage trading desk as it proceeds with a new plan to reposition its U.S. business. The announcement came after RBS reconsidered its initial plan disclosed five months ago to pare the mortgage trading unit by two-thirds over the next two years, cutting hundreds of jobs in the process. The plan also included an initial public offering of RBS’ Citizens Financial Group unit. The plan changed...
The benchmark non-agency mortgage-backed security that the Treasury Department is organizing will vary significantly from recent non-agency MBS. Michael Stegman, counselor on housing finance policy to the Treasury, revealed new details about the planned transaction last week in New York City at the Private-Label RMBS Symposium hosted by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network. Stegman said the benchmark non-agency MBS will ideally be ...
As leading figures in the secondary market continue their efforts to reboot the non-agency mortgage-backed securities sector, attracting private capital remains the single most critical factor in the equation. However, during a recent industry conference, institutional investors made it clear that in order for them to return, the market’s infrastructure will need to provide stronger protections, enhanced transparency and an improved ability to respond when a deal starts to go sour ...
The latest “green papers” in the Structured Finance Industry Group’s RMBS 3.0 standards-setting project focus on due-diligence disclosures for investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities. The SFIG noted that potential investors in non-agency MBS are particularly interested in findings conducted by third-party due-diligence firms before a security is issued. The SFIG proposed a model form that would disclose an “extract” of due-diligence findings to investors ...
FirstKey Mortgage, a jumbo conduit indirectly owned by funds managed by Cerberus Capital Management, is set to issue its first jumbo mortgage-backed security. FirstKey ramped up its jumbo activity in the past year and to this point has aggregated loans for inclusion in jumbo MBS from other issuers, including WinWater Home Mortgage, another relatively new jumbo MBS player. The $285.98 million FirstKey Mortgage Trust 2014-1 is set to receive AAA ratings ...
Prohibiting real estate investment trusts from joining the Federal Home Loan Bank system would hurt efforts to revive the non-agency market, according to two REITs that have gained access to FHLBank financing. Officials at both Two Harbors Investment and Redwood Trust said FHLBank advances helped the REITs fund originations of jumbo mortgages in the third quarter of 2014. Both companies recently gained access to FHLBank advances via captive insurance entities ...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed new servicing requirements this week. Among other changes, the federal regulator proposed requiring servicers to offer loss mitigation to borrowers that have received a loan mod but are in danger of re-default. The CFPB’s servicing rules currently require a servicer to evaluate a borrower for loss mitigation only once during the life of the loan. The proposed rule would also set requirements for ... [Includes three briefs]
The economic value of the FHA’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgage legacy portfolio fell to negative $0.9 billion in fiscal 2014 due mainly to volatility in long-term house prices and interest rates, according to the latest independent actuarial report on the health of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. The latest result was a significant improvement from FY 2012, when the fund stood at negative $2.8 billion. In fiscal 2013, the HECM portfolio’s economic value of positive $6.5 billion appeared to be a whopping change from the previous year but that amount reflected a $4.6 billion cash infusion from the forward program and from the $1.7 billion mandatory appropriation, the report clarified. The report also showed a corresponding decline in the HECM capital ratio to negative 1.20 percent. Actuarial projections for fiscal 2015 place the HECM portfolio’s economic value at negative $1.1 billion. The fund’s capital resources for ...
Thousands of military veterans in high-cost areas may be deprived of VA’s home-loan guarantee benefits unless Congress extends the current VA loan limits before the end of the year. Those loan limits expire on Dec. 31, 2014. The VA loan limits are based on median home values estimated by the FHA, providing loans up to 125 percent of local area median price. The program does not set a cap on how much a veteran can borrow to finance a home purchase but it does limit the maximum amount it can guarantee to 25 percent of the current loan limit. Veteran and industry groups are urging Congress to make the VA limits permanent. A VA spokesperson said the agency was not asked for a position on the issue since Congress did not put forward any bill in any of the hearings this year. “But as a general rule, VA wants to maximize the opportunities ...
RSS