The average daily trading volume for agency MBS fell slightly to $187.6 billion in August from the prior month, the second lowest reading of the year, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Lower trading volume indicates that liquidity has been reduced somewhat, but there could be brighter days ahead: the eight-month daily trading average is a bit higher at $200.9 billion and if that figure holds for the rest of the year, it will surpass last’s year’s daily average of $177.9 billion. Then again, $200.9 billion wouldn’t be...
Marketplace lending – otherwise known as peer-to-peer lending – is becoming more of a “thing” for institutional investors, hedge funds, venture capital firms, and even banks these days, but there are plenty of risks lurking in the bushes as well as other operational challenges, according to ratings service analysts. “While marketplace lending has enjoyed increasing growth and acceptance, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services believes a measured and cautious approach is warranted to properly evaluate this segment, which exhibits unique and heightened risks,” S&P credit analysts Ildiko Szilank and Timothy Bartl wrote in a new report. Among the risks they identified is...
The delinquency rate for loans backing commercial MBS was fairly stable in August, according to reports from Fitch Ratings and Trepp. Although Fitch reports that loan delinquencies fell one notch to 4.52 percent from the previous month, Trepp data show that the overall CMBS delinquency rate inched upward to 5.45 percent in August, from 5.42 in July. Late payment balances fell...
Ginnie Mae President Ted Tozer is urging the FHA to find some flexibility in its loan-level certification proposal that would balance the need to protect the FHA from losses with lenders’ ability to lend without fear of consequences. Tozer said the controversial FHA proposal is trying to find a middle road between protecting the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund and making lenders feel confident that they are accountable only for the most egregious problems and not for small oversights or technical errors. “It is...
The FHA will consider stakeholders’ concern about its proposal to terminate a lender’s mortgage insurance contract for missing a yet-to-be-finalized deadline for filing claims, an agency official said. For now, however, the agency remains adamant about letting the provision stand despite stakeholder complaints about its severity, said Ivery Himes, director of the Office of Single Family Asset Management at FHA, during a panel discussion this week at the Ginnie Mae annual conference in Arlington, VA. She said missed deadlines are costly and are putting a strain on the agency’s resources. Himes blamed...
Both of the government-sponsored enterprises are on track to meet the 2015 risk-sharing goals established by the Federal Housing Finance Agency with a quarter of the year to spare. Officials at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHFA said the GSEs will continue to work to expand the risk-sharing efforts, which are popular among many investors in the secondary market. At the ABS East conference produced by Information Management Network last week in Miami, Scott Smith, an associate director of capital policy at the FHFA, said he would like to see continued efforts to broaden the investor base for risk-sharing transactions. More than 160 investors have bought...
Freddie Mac reported that its first-time homebuyer business is growing and is on target to match its best year in the space since the beginning of the housing crisis. During the first half of 2015, lenders have delivered an average of 17,000 first-time homebuyer mortgages per month to the government-sponsored enterprise. That’s roughly the pace for last year but 25 percent higher than in 2013. Overall, the National Association of Realtors said...[Includes one data table]
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