Five years have passed since the Federal Housing Finance Agency filed suit against 18 Wall Street firms and banks for peddling nonprime MBS to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the years leading up to the housing crisis. All of the defendants have settled or lost with one glaring exception: Royal Bank of Scotland. As for when (and if) RBS will settle, that’s a different and complicated matter. The bank is presently owned by the British government, which took control of it during the financial crisis. In other words, any settlement might entail taxpayer money and cause a political controversy in the U.K. And the bill could be...
In a potential legal coup for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders, Federal Claims Court Judge Margaret Sweeney ordered the U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Housing Finance Agency to turn over another large batch of documents in relation to the Fairholme Funds Inc. v. United States, et al. net worth sweep case. Sweeney this week forced the government agencies to produce more documents, close to 60 this time, for the plaintiff’s attorneys. The agencies have attempted to keep the various memos, emails, presentations and other communications hidden under executive privilege. Shareholders say...
There have been a number of MBS issuers that have fallen short of Ginnie Mae’s strict liquidity and net worth requirements for all participants, but tighter oversight has cured most, if not of all of the cases, according to Ginnie’s top counterparty risk chief. Speaking this week at the annual Ginnie Mae summit in Washington, DC, Zack Skochko, director of counterparty risk, said several issuers have failed liquidity audits in 2016 by not maintaining the minimum $1 million cash or 10 basis points of outstanding Ginnie securities required to participate in the agency’s MBS program. The agency also requires...
As the third quarter draws to a close without a single increase in interest rates from the Federal Reserve, 2016 is increasingly looking like 2015, when the Fed said it would raise rates multiple times sometime during the year, only to wait until its very last meeting before finally raising them. Similarly, the U.S. central bank said it would raise rates four times in 2016, and so far, it has yet to raise rates once this year. This week, Fed Chair Janet Yellen explicitly stated she expects a rate increase this year, as do a majority of voting members of the Fed’s Open Market Committee. However, since they decided to take a pass this time around, the Fed only has...
JPMorgan Chase is set to end another lull in the issuance of jumbo mortgage-backed securities. The $395.40 million JPMorgan Mortgage Trust 2016-3 is scheduled to be issued next week, according to a presale report from Fitch Ratings. The most recently issued jumbo MBS priced in mid-August and was also from Chase. Only two firms with active conduits have issued jumbo MBS this year: Chase and Redwood Trust. Two Harbors Investment and WinWater Home Mortgage issued ...
The nonprime mortgage-backed security issued last week by Lone Star Funds priced at tighter spreads than the deal the company issued in June, indicating increased demand among investors. The $217.00 million COLT 2016-2 was also larger than the previous $161.40 million deal from Lone Star. According to Deutsche Bank Securities, spreads of A-1 tranche and A-2 tranche in COLT 2016-2 were respectively priced at 130 basis points and 175 bps, significantly tighter than ...
An investor-led group of participants in the non-agency mortgage-backed security market released a sample deal-agent agreement last week. The investors said the agreement can help reform non-agency MBS practices and increase issuance. Some investors have balked at buying new non-agency MBS until significant reforms are put in place. As early as July 2008, the American Securitization Forum started work on reforming the market and the Structured Finance Industry Group ...
The Department of Veterans Affairs is working on a change to its existing streamline refinancing policy to address a problem that is giving VA and Ginnie Mae the fits. Under the VA’s qualified-mortgage rule, a VA borrower must wait six months and show six months’ worth of mortgage payments before they can refinance into an IRRRL (Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan) and take advantage of the lower rate. However, it seems not all VA lenders are adhering to the rule and that a good number are refinancing veterans into IRRRLs even before the mandatory seasoning period ends for fear interest rates might rise and the borrower might not benefit from the lower rate. “I’ve redone the numbers in 20 different directions on how much a borrower would save if they had to wait two more months and the rate went up a quarter of a point because they lost those two months ...
Ginnie Mae continues to wrestle with issuers lacking liquidity and net worth although the number of such cases has gone down significantly, thanks to tight oversight, according to the agency’s top counterparty risk officer. Briefing participants at this year’s Ginnie Mae summit in Washington, DC, Zack Skochko, director of counterparty risk, reported that some issuers are still struggling to comply with Ginnie Mae’s liquidity and net worth requirements.A number of small issuers failed their liquidity and net worth audits this year by not maintaining the minimum $1 million cash or 10 basis points of outstanding Ginnie securities required to participate in the agency’s mortgage-backed securities program. Ginnie Mae also requires issuers to meet a minimum net worth of $2.5 million plus 35 bps of the issuer’s total effective single-family obligations The requirements were designed to ensure that the ...
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