Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securitized $183.69 billion of newly originated mortgages produced through the wholesale-broker channel last year, a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis reveals. That was up 22.2 percent from 2015 volume, the biggest increase among the three mortgage-production channels. The biggest increase for broker originations was in Fannie mortgage-backed securities, rising 31.5 percent from 2015, accounting for 12.2 percent of the government-sponsored enterprise’s MBS issuance last year. The dataset includes only purchase and refinance loans that were securitized within six months of origination, and it excludes mortgages with no channel identification. Brokers earned...[Includes two data tables]

Mortgage applications rose 3.1 percent, on a seasonally adjusted basis, for the week ending March 10, 2017, versus the week before, the Mortgage Bankers Association announced Wednesday morning. The MBA's Refinance Index rose 4 percent, and its Purchase Index was up 2 percent…

Bank of America initially acquired the mortgages through the bank’s jumbo whole loan purchase program.

In addition to re-performing mortgages, Mill City Mortgage Loan Trust 2017-1 included some home-equity lines of credit and newly originated mortgages.

Fannie Mae is preparing to issue a Connecticut Avenue Securities risk-sharing transaction relating to mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $39.99 billion.

Mortgage lenders’ efforts at compliance with post-financial crisis regulation, largely from the CFPB, shifted their focus from fully implementing e-mortgage processes but also helped them develop the necessary technology to move forward with them in the future, according to a new report from analysts at Moody’s Investors Service. “Following the crisis, lenders focused on adapting technology to implement regulations such as the ability-to-repay [qualified mortgage] rule and the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule rather than on e-mortgages,” the analysts said. “The implementation of those regulations has, however, led to advancements in the technology needed to originate e-mortgages by providing, for example, a seamless data feed between the mortgage loan application and the disclosure documents.” Further, “Some lenders and servicers have also ...

Nationstar in the CFPB’s Crosshairs Over HMDA Reporting. Nationstar, the residential mortgage servicer, revealed recently it is being investigated by the CFPB over issues related to complying with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.... Non-Agency MBS Issuers Like the Legal Protection of the ATR. Congressional Republicans may be working on legislation to repeal and replace many regulations required by the Dodd-Frank Act, but some issuers of mortgage-backed securities are actually pushing to maintain some of the regulations.... Trump Executive Order on Regulatory Red Tape Unlikely to Apply to CFPB. Will the Bureau Comply Anyway? The executive order that President Trump signed in the middle of February that requires every federal agency to establish a regulatory reform task force to eliminate red tape probably does not apply to the CFPB, according to industry experts....

The U.S. banking industry is a steady, but not a huge, supporter of the non-mortgage-ABS market, accounting for 17.4 percent of the supply of ABS outstanding at the end of 2016, according to a new call-report analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. By comparison, banks and thrifts held about 26.5 percent of MBS outstanding at yearend. Although ABS issuance since the financial crisis has dwarfed production of non-agency MBS, the market still hasn’t fully recovered. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association reports that total ABS outstanding – not including collateralized debt obligations – declined by 0.3 percent during the fourth quarter to $712.1 billion. That’s still well below the total outstanding at the end of 2007, $899.8 billion. Commercial banks and thrifts reported...[Includes two data tables]

The deal-agent role that some investors are pushing for in new non-agency MBS will complete or oversee many of the tasks that are already present in transactions with one important caveat: the deal agent has a responsibility to protect investors. A deal agent will oversee various participants in an MBS, oversee enforcement of representations and warranties, and have a fiduciary duty to investors. Yehudah Forster, a vice president and senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service, said...

A transparency feature included in the Dodd-Frank Act aimed at helping MBS and ABS investors understand the representations and warranties on a transaction has created a significant amount of work for rating services with little benefit for investors, according to officials at ratings firms. Since June 2015, rating services have been required by the DFA to compare the reps and warrants on a transaction they’re rating with a benchmark set of reps and warrants for that asset class. These 17g-7 reports often span hundreds of pages, detailing similarities and differences between the reps and warrants on a specific transaction compared with a set of benchmarks established by the rating services. Claire Mezzanotte, a group managing director and head of global structured finance at DBRS, said...