FHA Issues Waiver of Property Inspections in Disaster-Stricken California Counties. FHA has issued a waiver of its timing policy for completing property inspections prior to closing or endorsing a loan for FHA insurance. The waiver is in effect in presidentially declared major disaster areas in Lake and Shasta Counties, CA, that were ravaged by wildfires and high winds. FHA believes that the wildfires and high winds have stabilized so as not to cause any further damage to properties, even though FEMA has not declared “all clear” in the affected areas. The waiver allows damage inspections to be completed after Oct. 2, for properties located in the PDMDA. NC Commissioner of Banks Amends State Reverse Mortgage Rules. The North Carolina Commissioner of Banks recently amended its ...
The ABS East conference this week had its highest attendance in the 24-year history of the event, with investors looking for MBS and ABS that offer attractive yields. Nearly 5,000 people registered to attend the conference this year, according to Jade Friedensohn, a managing director of the structured finance division of Information Management Network, which produced the event in Miami Beach. Attendance in the previous two years was dampened by a hurricane and concerns about the Zika virus ...
Issuance of expanded-credit MBS is booming but total volume remains relatively small as major investors continue to avoid the sector. Investors such as Blackrock and PIMCO are looking for improvements to representations and warranties, according to industry participants. Eric Kaplan, director of the housing finance program at the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets, said some big investors prefer to acquire expanded-credit loans, such as non-qualified mortgages, as whole loans ...
The overall mortgage securitization fell sharply in the second quarter of 2018 as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS issuance failed to keep pace with a surge in conventional-conforming mortgage originations in the primary market. During the second quarter, just 65.8 percent of newly originated mortgages were pooled in MBS, down from 71.7 percent in the first three months of the year and a 70.3 percent rate for all of 2017, according to a new Inside MBS ... [Includes one data chart]
DBRS was the most active rating service in the non-agency MBS market during the first six months of 2018, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. DBRS rated 26 non-agency MBS totaling $14.08 billion during the first half of the year, which represented 43.5 percent of total issuance. Its market share was up 4.0 percentage points from 2017. Fitch Ratings grew its market share in rating non-agency MBS, which rose from 31.0 percent last year to ... [Includes two data charts]
Increased competition in the non-qualified mortgage market could reduce interest rates paid by borrowers and slow the sector’s speedy prepayment rates, said S&P Global Ratings. Non-QM loans, the fastest growing segment of the residential MBS market, repay quickly, often within one year of origination. S&P noted the conditional prepayment rate of non-QM loans is about 35 percent, while the rate for non-agency prime jumbos ranges from 5 percent to 15 percent. “The predominant reason to ...
Ongoing challenges in the retail sector are raising questions about the credit implications for some structured finance collateral, though the negative effects on the commercial MBS market appear to be limited due to a strong economy, according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service. The disruption in the U.S. retail sector has been caused by the growth of online shopping, cutthroat competition, over-expansion and inability to adapt to changing consumer demands, the report indicated ...
Most of the major MBS investor groups added to their holdings during the second quarter of 2018, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. [Includes two data charts.]
The average daily trading volume in agency MBS fell to just $188.4 billion in August, the lowest reading of the year and a possible sign of trouble ahead, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.