A&D Mortgage recently started offering non-qualified mortgages on a wholesale basis via mortgage brokers. The lender, whose originations are focused in southern Florida, noted that its underwriting for the loans includes “limited income and asset documentation” including options for stated income and stated assets. A&D offers non-QMs aimed at investors and foreign nationals. The lender said the loans are typically for non-owner-occupied ... [Includes four briefs]

With nonbanks fearing they could be stuck with error-laden mortgages that violate the integrated disclosure rule, a secondary market has developed for this new breed of “scratch and dent” loans, according to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance. One investor, requesting his firm’s name not be identified, said his shop bought such a mortgage for 90 cents on the dollar. Participants in the market – including investors and traders – concede...

The turmoil in financial markets around the world is fueling a flight to safety on the part of investors into U.S. dollar-denominated assets, helping to keep mortgage rates in the U.S. housing market lower than they otherwise would be. But how long that will continue is anyone’s guess. “The recent volatility in worldwide financial markets caused Treasury rates to decline, so we’ve seen that being picked up in mortgage rates,” Danielle Hale, managing director of housing statistics for the National Association of Realtors, told Inside Mortgage Finance. Mike Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said...

Although the CFPB recently issued a “clarifying” letter on errors tied to the TRID integrated disclosure rule, deep concerns remain among originators that fund non-agency product for sale into the secondary market. Moreover, according to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated publication, some nonbank lenders are seeing noticeable increases in origination costs because loans are taking longer to close and therefore remain on warehouse lines for an extended period of time. Because nonbanks fund almost all of their production using warehouse credit, the implication boils down to this: already squeezed profit margins are going to shrink. Industry efforts to comply with the new disclosures, which merge requirements of the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement ...

The recent letter from CFPB Director Richard Cordray to the Mortgage Bankers Association clarifying certain aspects of the bureau’s integrated disclosure rule has some important take-aways – and certain limitations – the industry should be mindful of, according to some top industry attorneys. In a recent online blog posting, attorneys Donald Lampe and Leonard Chanin of Morrison & Foerster LLP identified a handful of key take-aways for mortgage market participants related to the TRID rule. First, “If mortgage loan originators and others involved in the origination, financing and sales of mortgage loans are not familiar with the benefits of [specific] Know Before You Owe disclosure cure provisions, now is the time to assess them,” the attorneys began. They then noted that Cordray’s ...

Investors in non-agency U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities are unlikely to face much in the way of risk stemming from lender non-compliance with the new requirements of the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule known as TRID, according to analysts at Fitch Ratings. “Although the frequency of non-compliance issues will likely be elevated initially as lenders implement the new changes, those non-compliance issues are not likely to translate into higher risk for bondholders,” the analysts said in a recent report. Their initial due diligence sampling of prime jumbo mortgages in the secondary market has revealed a high level of compliance issues thus far. However, most of them appear to be good-faith errors. The ratings service is continuing its discussions with market participants on ...

Issuers of MBS and ABS continue to address compliance issues with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s so-called Regulation AB2. Meanwhile, the Structured Finance Industry Group has urged the SEC to continue to delay further action on disclosure proposals that remain outstanding. In August 2014, the SEC published a final rule setting a variety of disclosure requirements for the structured finance market. Issuers of publicly registered MBS and ABS were required to comply with rules, forms and disclosures established by Reg AB2 by Nov. 23, 2015. Asset-level disclosure requirements will take effect Nov. 23 of this year. During a webinar hosted by the law firm of Mayer Brown late last week, Stuart Litwin, a partner at the law firm, said...

MBS backed by multifamily mortgage loans would be exempt from a proposed rule that would establish margining requirements for multifamily agency finance. Had it been implemented as originally proposed, the rule would have amended the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Rule 4210 to establish margin requirements in the single-family “to-be-announced” (TBA) market. At the same time, it would have also scoped in the multifamily housing programs of Fannie Mae and FHA/Ginnie Mae, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. FINRA filed...

The first security backed by proceeds from properties that have “rent-to-own” agreements has caused some divergence among rating services. Home Partners of America is preparing to issue a $508.88 million deal, which received preliminary AAA ratings from two firms. Moody’s Investors Service and Morningstar Credit Ratings issued presale reports on Home Partners of America 2016-1 last week. Kroll Bond Rating Agency followed with a warning that rent-to-own deals present more risks than single-family rental securitizations. The collateral for the security is...

Nonbank institutions continued to expand their footprint in agency mortgage servicing rights last year, thanks to both their growing share of new originations and a hefty dose of MSR transfers, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. At the end of 2015, some $5.931 trillion of home mortgages were connected to mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. That was up a modest 0.8 percent from the same period back in 2014 and included a small 0.3 percent increase from the third to the fourth quarter of last year. These figures are based on agency MBS disclosures that typically vary slightly from aggregate data released by the three agencies. Nonbanks accounted...[Includes two data tables]