The Federal Housing Finance Agency should act now to slowly increase Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s guaranty fees, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. SIFMA’s tempered support of a proposed government-sponsored enterprise g-fee increase runs contrary to the position held by much of the rest of the industry – that now is not the time. “We encourage...
The Department of Justice recently subpoenaed GM Financial and Santander Consumer USA, two of the largest subprime auto ABS issuers in the U.S., over concerns about their subprime auto lending and securitization operations, the two companies recently revealed. The developments suggest that such regulatory scrutiny of the sector in the wake of the financial crisis is intensifying, market participants and policy analysts say. Whether that will pose a substantial risk to other lenders remains to be seen. GM Financial announced...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued their conservatorship march toward smaller retained mortgage portfolios during the second quarter of 2014, with most of the focus on non-agency collateral, according to a new analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. The two government-sponsored enterprises ended June with a combined $872.7 billion in mortgage-related holdings, down 3.3 percent from the previous quarter. Compared to a year ago, their combined portfolio was down 19.7 percent. It was down 45.2 percent from the $1.592 trillion they held in the fourth quarter of 2008 shortly after the two were put in conservatorship. The biggest decline has been...[Includes one data chart]
Trustee responsibilities, the role of the government-sponsored enterprises, deal documentation, loan-level disclosures, servicing, ratings, assignee liability, regulatory uncertainty, lien priority, bondholder communication and incentives for banks. These are just a few of the issues that need to be addressed for non-agency MBS issuance to resume in a meaningful manner, according to industry participants. About 25 comment letters were submitted after a request from the Treasury ...
The Structured Finance Industry Group has proposed investor-friendly standards for non-agency mortgage-backed securities in an effort to increase activity in the sector. The first “green paper” on Project RMBS 3.0 focuses on representations and warranties, triggers for independent reviews and disclosure of underwriting guidelines. “The goal here is to produce a proposal for standards that we would hope the industry adopts,” said Richard Johns, SFIG’s executive director ...
Morgan Stanley was set to issue its first jumbo mortgage-backed security since the financial crisis this week. The $256.48 million deal differs from most jumbo MBS issued in recent years in that all the loans were sourced from one lender, and they’re all adjustable-rate mortgages, including a fair number of interest-only loans. Morgan Stanley Residential Mortgage Loan Trust 2014-1 was scheduled to close Aug. 15. Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s gave the deal ...
Redwood Trust is set to significantly increase the number of lenders that sell jumbo mortgages to the real estate investment trust, according to company officials, largely from a new partnership with the Federal Home Loan Banks. Redwood had 140 active sellers at the end of June. The REIT plans to start testing its high-balance loan program with the FHLBanks’ Mortgage Partnership Finance Program in the fourth quarter of this year. Redwood said about 750 of the more than ...
Moody’s Investors Service this week announced a proposed update to its rating criteria for jumbo mortgage-backed securities. Under the proposed criteria, collateral modeling will be based on a new version of Moody’s Individual Loan Analysis tool as opposed to the portfolio analysis tool Moody’s has used since 2008. Navneet Agarwal, a managing director at Moody’s, said the proposed changes set “a new standard for transparency” ... [Includes six briefs]