JPMorgan Chase last week ended six years of litigation by agreeing to a $388 million settlement to resolve allegations that the bank misled investors about the quality of pre-crisis MBS they had purchased. Still requiring court approval, the settlement would conclude one of the last remaining MBS purchaser class actions arising out of the financial crisis, according to plaintiff attorneys. The suit was filed...

Investors interested in the jumbo mortgage-backed security from JPMorgan Chase that’s set to be issued next week received new disclosures with sometimes confusing information thanks to a rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission. JPMorgan Mortgage Trust 2015-4 will have a balance of $388.34 million, according to presale reports published last week by Kroll Bond Rating Agency and Moody’s Investors Service. A week before the presale reports ...

The Federal Home Loan Bank Mortgage Partnership Finance program has announced its first security issuance with a Ginnie Mae guarantee. The $5 million security is backed by home loans originated by community banks and credit unions through the MPF Government MBS product. The Mortgage Bankers Association welcomed the new MBS, seeing it as another opportunity for all lenders to access the capital markets directly, reducing costs and increasing originations. “Many community banks use the FHLB MPF program to sell conventional mortgages into the secondary market,” observed Ron Haynie, senior vice president at the Independent Community Bankers of America. “This expansion in aggregating and securitizing government loans provides community banks with the opportunity to reach more borrowers, especially in rural and small-town markets, and to safely sell those loans to ...

The mortgage market cranked up new originations significantly during the second quarter of 2015, lifting production to its highest level in nearly two years, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Lenders produced an estimated $445 billion of first-lien single-family mortgages during the second quarter, an increase of 23.6 percent over the first three months of 2015. It marked the strongest origination volume since the second quarter of 2013, when the industry was in the middle of a refinance boom that generated over $2 trillion in new production over a 12-month period. The party this time around doesn’t look...[Includes two data tables]

Several large servicing portfolios of $1 billion or more hit the market in the past few weeks, but dealmakers and investors continue to wonder about the largest prize of them all: RoundPoint Mortgage, Charlotte, NC, which owns roughly $52.18 billion of receivables and ranks among the top 25. Investment banking officials who claim to have knowledge of the RoundPoint situation maintain that its owner, The Tavistock Group, is hell-bent on selling the nonbank, but as far as coming to final terms with a buyer, any buyer, that’s a different matter. It’s...

A handful of nonbank lenders are stepping up to the plate, offering mortgages to borrowers who are just one day removed from a foreclosure or short sale. But there’s a catch: many of the lenders willing to extend such credit want at least 20 percent down. Also, as it turns out, the trend is being funded by commercial banks that are serving as the end investors in the product. Two banks – one in California and one in New York – were identified...

Originations of purchase mortgages were strong in the second quarter of 2015 and through the start of summer, according to industry participants. In recent months, demand for home purchases has been driven by current homeowners and first-time homebuyers, two groups that are particularly reliant on mortgage financing. “The purchase market has been stronger than people expected in the second quarter,” said Paul Miller, a managing director at FBR Capital Markets. Kevin Hester, chief lending officer at Home BancShares, said...

American International Group is reportedly bringing to market $300 million in securitized notes backed by mortgage insurance written by its private MI subsidiary United Guaranty Corp., but the global insurance company is playing it close to the vest. AIG and United Guaranty are keeping details of the risk-transfer transaction under wraps and a spokesperson for UG declined to comment. Credit Suisse is the seller of the notes. Citing company marketing documents, Bloomberg reported...

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS fell to $183.7 billion in June, the lowest reading of the year and another sign that all is not well for anyone who makes their living off of actual trading as opposed to being involved in new issuance. “There are a lot of people out there buying on credit and keeping MBS,” said Christopher Whalen, a senior managing director in the Financial Institutions Ratings Group at Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Whalen added...

Activity in the non-agency MBS market involving nonperforming loans and re-performing loans is expected to continue to flourish through at least the end of this year, according to industry analysts. Vintage mortgages in scratch-and-dent deals accounted for 42.0 percent of the non-agency MBS issued in the first half of 2015, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database. The $15.60 billion in scratch-and-dent volume included a mix of nonperforming loans and re-performing loans. Issuance of non-agency MBS backed by NPLs and RPLs through two quarters this year equaled...