The secondary market in transfers of agency mortgage servicing rights continued to gain momentum during the third quarter of 2017 as long-time players in the mortgage industry executed plans to shift strategy. A new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of agency mortgage-backed securities disclosures shows an estimated $150.80 billion of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae servicing changed hands during the third quarter. Much of the activity reflected ... [Includes three data charts]

Arch Capital Group is set to issue a mortgage-insurance linked note transaction. Unlike two other re-insurance deals from a similar shelf, Bellemeade Re 2017-1 received credit ratings, expanding the investor base for the transaction. A mezzanine tranche of the deal received preliminary BBB ratings from Morningstar Credit Rat-ings this week. Mortgages delivered to the government-sponsored enterprises with an unpaid principal balance of $29.30 billion are included in the transaction ...

The securities industry is backing Ginnie Mae’s stepped-up efforts to curb loan churning and rapid refinancing of VA loans and expressed its concern over how such improper lending practices might affect borrowers and MBS investors. In a letter this week to Michael Bright, Ginnie’s chief operating officer and acting president, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association lauded the agency’s investigation of aggressive refinancing of VA loans. The practice has ...

Citadel Servicing Corp. has talked about issuing its first non-prime MBS, possibly late this year, and this week cleared a hurdle when it received lender and servicer ratings from Morningstar. According to sources close to the company, the anticipated MBS – backed by newly originated loans that do not meet the qualified-mortgage test – could be as large as $250 million. Nomura is assisting Citadel with the deal, a source noted, adding that the bond may not actually hit the market until ...

Default rates could increase for certain types of MBS and ABS as some borrowers experience higher debt-to-income ratios, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The rating service pointed to new results from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances conducted every three years. The survey showed a modest increase between 2013 and 2016 in the median ratio of debt payments to family incomes among debtors in the 20.0 percent to 39.9 percent income percentile ...

The Structured Finance Industry Group agrees with many of the proposals made by the Treasury Department in its recent report on regulatory reform for financial markets but seeks more clarity about risk retention requirements. Published earlier this month, the Treasury report said that the requirement that sponsors retain a residual interest in securitizations adds unnecessary cost to securitization as a funding source. In turn, it inhibits the prudent expansion of credit through securitized products ...

Ginnie Mae issuers rode a wave of purchase-mortgage lending to deliver $120.46 billion of forward mortgages during the third quarter of 2017, the highest three-month volume for the year, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. Third-quarter volume was up 9.6 percent from the April-June cycle. The data excluded FHA reverse mortgages and loan amounts are truncated in Ginnie’s mortgage-backed securities disclosures. Without those limitations, total Ginnie MBS issuance rose 9.5 percent to $123.37 billion in the third quarter. Purchase mortgages were the engine behind the growth. Ginnie issuers securitized $85.35 billion of purchase loans in the third quarter, falling just short of the record $85.41 billion set in the third quarter of last year. Although most Ginnie purchase loans (58.7 percent) were FHA loans, the biggest increase was in such loans guaranteed by the ... [Charts]

An estimated 9.8 percent of Ginnie Mae’s business may be potentially at risk due to hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, according to data released recently by the agency. The data represent the number of Ginnie loans and their unpaid principal balance amounts in presidentially declared disaster areas in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A total of 1.07 million mortgage loans with an unpaid principal balance of $184.5 billion have been affected. Ginnie Mae’s current mortgage-backed securities portfolio totals $1.9 trillion. The data only refer to the geographic locations of all affected properties underlying loans in Ginnie MBS pools and do not indicate the percentage of those that may have sustained damage during a storm. Hurricane Irma had the highest share of affected loans, 6 percent, while Harvey and Maria accounted for 3 percent and 1 percent, respectively. Irma caused the ...

A slowdown in new scratch-and-dent deals proved to be a drag on non-agency MBS issuance during the third quarter, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Total non-agency MBS production fell to $10.99 billion in the third quarter of 2017, a 29.9 percent decline from the previous period. It was the slowest quarter of 2017, although year-to-date production was still up 14.1 percent from the first nine months of 2016. The major factor was ... [Includes two data charts]

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS increased to $223.2 billion in September, the second highest reading of the year, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Compared to August, trading volume was up about 12.1 percent, but flat compared to the same month a year ago. The increase in activity coincided with declining bond prices and rising interest rates. As the weekend approached, the yield on the benchmark ...