Newcastle Investment announced last week that it will spin off all of its excess mortgage servicing rights and certain other residential assets as part of a new real estate investment trust. The company also participated in another significant servicing transaction with Nationstar Mortgage. The publicly traded REIT spin-off is set to be completed during the first quarter of 2013 and will be known as New Residential Investment. We believe the separation of Newcastle and New Residential will ...
Home Loan Servicing Solutions an affiliate of Ocwen Financial made some significant moves recently with an acquisition of rights to receive servicing fees on $34.6 billion in unpaid principal balance handled by Ocwen. And the company is set to issue a $750.0 million securitization backed by servicer advances. Near the end of December, HLSS announced that it acquired rights to receive servicing fees on nonprime mortgages. Ocwen will continue to service the mortgages, receive a monthly base fee ...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac combined did more business in single-family mortgage-backed securities issuance in 2012 than in any year since 2003, with a growing share of their business coming from small and mid-sized lenders, according to an Inside The GSEs analysis. The two GSEs pumped out a staggering $1.266 trillion in new single-family MBS in 2012, a 48.1 percent increase over their total production in 2011. It marked the biggest annual output by Fannie and Freddie since the all-time record of $1.912 trillion nine years earlier.
The federal judge in charge of overseeing the multiple lawsuits filed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency against non-agency mortgage-backed securities issuers for allegedly misrepresenting deals that were sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rebuffed yet another motion by one of the banks to shut down the legal action. Last week, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Manhattan rejected a motion to reconsider her December decision allowing the FHFA to proceed on behalf of the GSEs with most of its fraud claims against Ally Financial. On Dec. 19, the judge denied most of Allys motion to dismiss, including the defendants request that the court strike the demand for punitive damages, finding there were sufficient factual allegations in the FHFAs complaint to move forward with its fraud complaint.
The residential mortgage servicing market continued its incredible shrinking act during the third quarter of 2012, falling below the $10 trillion mark for the first time since early 2006. The Federal Reserve reported that total single-family mortgage debt outstanding declined by 0.9 percent during the third quarter, drifting down to $9.926 trillion. The supply of mortgage servicing has been in a steady decline since peaking at $11.179 trillion in March 2008. The agency servicing market was...[Includes two data charts]
Investment bankers that ply their trade in mortgage finance expect 2013 could turn out to be a strong year for mergers and acquisitions as current players, flush with cash, look to expand their franchises. But according to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance, outside money including private-equity capital and hedge funds might finally take the plunge this year as well. PE firms are definitely looking, said Chuck Klein, managing partner of Mortgage Banking Solutions. But he also cautions that hedge funds are hardly pushovers as buyers. Hedge funds do...
Newcastle Investment Corp., a behind-the-scenes player in Nationstars recent purchase of $215 billion of servicing rights from Bank of America, plans to spin off part of its business into a new unit called New Residential Investment Corp. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, NRIC will invest in MBS, excess mortgage servicing rights, nonperforming loans and other asset classes. The company hopes to complete the spin-off by the end of March. The shares, though, will be spun-off...
The Obama administration is making a renewed push in 2013 for a government-backed non-agency refinance program, potentially the third major phase of the Home Affordable Refinance Program. However, there appear to be numerous hurdles to using the government-sponsored enterprises to help refi non-agency borrowers and a similar proposal using the FHA has yet to gain widespread support in Congress. Under the latest HARP 3.0 proposal, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would refinance certain non-agency mortgages with negative equity, waive mortgage insurance requirements and charge the borrowers higher guaranty fees. The proposal would require approval from Congress. After taking significant taxpayer bailouts, the GSEs fiscal condition is...
The securitization market generated $1.847 trillion in new residential MBS and non-mortgage ABS in 2012, reversing two straight years of declining volume, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. Last years output was up 41.2 percent from total issuance in 2011, and it marked the strongest annual new issuance volume since 2009. Total securitization volume rose modestly, by 2.3 percent, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, and activity cooled significantly in December. As has been the case since the financial market meltdown in 2008, securitization was dominated...[Includes three data charts]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued its long-awaited qualified mortgage ability-to-repay final rule that, as expected, includes an exception for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages and does little to facilitate a rebound in the non-agency sector. Mortgage lenders will be presumed to have complied with the ability-to-repay rule if they originate qualified mortgages that prohibit or limit the risky features believed to have harmed consumers in the recent mortgage crisis. That means...