The alternatives to credit ratings mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act aimed to address contributors to the financial crisis have their own challenges, according to a new report from the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research. John Soroushian, a research analyst for policy studies at the OFR, noted that before the financial crisis, rating services had an incentive to inflate ratings for MBS, ABS and other investments to expand their business. He said rating services were “key enablers” in the creation of MBS and collateralized-debt obligations. “Without ratings, it would have been...

Structured finance investors don’t have much of an appetite for new non-agency MBS, but they appear to be hungry for fast-food business securitizations. Taco Bell is the latest firm to enter the market, offering a $2.10 billion securitization. The planned Taco Bell Funding LLC Series 2016-1 received preliminary BBB ratings from Standard & Poor’s late last week. It’s the second whole-business securitization to price this year, following a $575.0 million deal involving Sonic Drive-In that also priced in April. The Taco Bell securitization is backed...

Mortgage lenders that have excelled at originating refinance loans posted steady and improving originations during the first quarter of 2016 while competitors that are more focused on the purchase-mortgage market generally saw declining production levels. A new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking shows that first-lien mortgage originations totaled an estimated $380.0 billion during the first three months of 2016, down slightly from the fourth quarter of last year. That estimate could change as more information becomes available, especially from major nonbank lenders that have not yet reported first-quarter originations data. Agency indicators were...[Includes two data tables]

Having agreed to pay billions of dollars in damages for underwriting allegedly faulty FHA mortgages, the nation’s megabanks could be pondering a better idea: Creating a portfolio product that accomplishes the same task as a low-downpayment, government-backed loan. According to industry officials who claim to have knowledge of the situation, Wells Fargo and at least one other top-five ranked lender are working on such a concept, but it remains to be seen whether they will ever get there, and if they do, whether such a creation can amass any type of volume. When asked whether Wells was working on an FHA-like portfolio loan, a spokesman did not dismiss...

A lender that focuses on investment properties is preparing to issue a non-agency MBS backed by adjustable-rate mortgages on residential and commercial properties. The deal shares some characteristics with non-agency MBS backed by new loans, but it’s different in a lot of ways. The planned $358.60 million Velocity Commercial Capital 2016-1 received provisional AAA ratings this week from Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Residential properties account for 55.3 percent of the collateral, with small commercial properties making up the rest. All of the mortgages backing the planned MBS are for investment properties. Velocity Commercial Capital issued...

Ginnie Mae is shutting down its long-running Targeted Lending Initiative (TLI) because it has not made much of an impact on lending to underserved urban and rural areas in recent years. Launched in 1997, the TLI was designed to encourage lenders to finance housing in underserved areas through a reduced guaranty fee. In 2005, the program played a major role in offering relief and financial assistance to homeowners in areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. Under the TLI, Ginnie Mae’s guaranty fee is reduced...

Pingora Asset Management, one of the largest investors in “flow” mortgage servicing rights arrangements, is about to become the property of the nation’s largest real estate investment trust focused on the MBS market, Annaly Capital Management, New York. The purchase of Pingora’s parent, Hatteras Financial, Winston-Salem, NC – a deal valued at $1.5 billion – was unveiled last week, but one important facet regarding Hatteras garnered little in the way of press attention: that it just happens to own Pingora, which at last check laid claim to roughly $76 billion in MSR assets. However, not all of the servicing rights will become...

Relatively strong pricing for a jumbo mortgage-backed security issued at the end of March appears to have done little thus far to open the spigot for deals that include loans subject to the TRID mortgage disclosure rule. The $331.95 million Agate Bay Mortgage Trust 2016-2 was issued by Two Harbors Investment at the end of March. The deal included 43 mortgages subject to TRID, many of which had initial compliance exceptions. Analysts at Interactive Data said ...

Caliber Home Loans was assessed by Moody’s Investors Service as an originator of “expanded-credit” mortgages last week. Caliber is the first lender to receive a rating from Moody’s for expanded-credit mortgages, which could pave the way for the first rated non-agency mortgage-backed security that includes non-qualified mortgages. The rating service defined Caliber’s expanded-credit mortgages as non-agency mortgages that are not prime jumbo loans. Moody’s said ...

Underwriting standards on the four prime non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued in the first quarter of 2016 loosened marginally compared with the typical prime jumbo MBS issued in recent years, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. The combined loan-to-value ratio on prime non-agency MBS issued in the first quarter of 2016 averaged 69.8 percent. That was somewhat higher than the average combined ... [Includes one data chart]