Redwood Trust loosened its underwriting guidelines for jumbo mortgages in an effort to acquire loans beyond the typical standards set by big banks, according to officials at the real estate investment trust. “It’s meant to [address] the entire universe outside of the banks while still serving borrowers who we think are good candidates and will repay,” Christopher Abate, president of Redwood, said during an investor presentation in September. Redwood introduced its Choice expanded-prime ...
Ocwen Financial revealed last week that it won’t face enforcement actions from the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding two outstanding investigations. And the nonbank has reached settlements with a number of the state regulators that took actions against the company earlier this year. The SEC was conducting investigations involving Ocwen regarding the use of collection agents and fees and expenses related to liquidated loans and real estate-owned ...
Ginnie Mae issuers rode a wave of purchase-mortgage lending to deliver $120.46 billion of forward mortgages during the third quarter of 2017, the highest three-month volume for the year, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. Third-quarter volume was up 9.6 percent from the April-June cycle. The data excluded FHA reverse mortgages and loan amounts are truncated in Ginnie’s mortgage-backed securities disclosures. Without those limitations, total Ginnie MBS issuance rose 9.5 percent to $123.37 billion in the third quarter. Purchase mortgages were the engine behind the growth. Ginnie issuers securitized $85.35 billion of purchase loans in the third quarter, falling just short of the record $85.41 billion set in the third quarter of last year. Although most Ginnie purchase loans (58.7 percent) were FHA loans, the biggest increase was in such loans guaranteed by the ... [Charts]
An estimated 9.8 percent of Ginnie Mae’s business may be potentially at risk due to hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, according to data released recently by the agency. The data represent the number of Ginnie loans and their unpaid principal balance amounts in presidentially declared disaster areas in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A total of 1.07 million mortgage loans with an unpaid principal balance of $184.5 billion have been affected. Ginnie Mae’s current mortgage-backed securities portfolio totals $1.9 trillion. The data only refer to the geographic locations of all affected properties underlying loans in Ginnie MBS pools and do not indicate the percentage of those that may have sustained damage during a storm. Hurricane Irma had the highest share of affected loans, 6 percent, while Harvey and Maria accounted for 3 percent and 1 percent, respectively. Irma caused the ...
A slowdown in new scratch-and-dent deals proved to be a drag on non-agency MBS issuance during the third quarter, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Total non-agency MBS production fell to $10.99 billion in the third quarter of 2017, a 29.9 percent decline from the previous period. It was the slowest quarter of 2017, although year-to-date production was still up 14.1 percent from the first nine months of 2016. The major factor was ... [Includes two data charts]
The Treasury Department released a report late last week calling for a variety of regulatory reforms for the MBS and ABS markets. Many of the reforms aim to increase issuance and are likely to come into effect, particularly those that don’t require action by Congress. The recommendations were part of a response to an executive order issued by President Trump calling for regulators to identify actions to be taken to align financial regulations with “core principles” established by ...
Risk-retention requirements established by the Dodd-Frank Act generally require sponsors or contributing lenders to retain risk from MBS and ABS issuance to align their interests with those of investors. Some issuers are financing their risk-retention obligations even though regulations regarding such transactions are murky. “A security sponsor or majority-owned affiliate must reconcile a variety of different requirements in structuring a secured financing of its risk-retention ...
The average daily trading volume in agency MBS increased to $223.2 billion in September, the second highest reading of the year, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Compared to August, trading volume was up about 12.1 percent, but flat compared to the same month a year ago. The increase in activity coincided with declining bond prices and rising interest rates. As the weekend approached, the yield on the benchmark ...
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