Downgrades by Standard & Poor’s to numerous servicer ratings for Ocwen Financial could have a significant impact on the nonbank’s servicing operations. The rating service downgraded servicer ratings for Ocwen to “below average” last week, citing continued scrutiny by investors and regulators along with concerns about internal audits at Ocwen. As of the end of the first quarter of 2015, approximately 700 of the 4,100 non-agency servicing agreements handled by Ocwen had criteria regarding minimum servicer ratings ...

A new feature Redwood Trust has included in its two most recent jumbo mortgage-backed securities has prompted support from AAA investors along with mixed reactions from rating services. The $356.45 million Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2015-2 issued in April and the $343.21 million Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2015-3 that was issued this week included a unique stop-advance feature. Servicers of the loans won’t be allowed to provide advances of principal and interest on loans that are 120+ days delinquent. The jumbo MBS were rated by Kroll Bond Rating Agency and Moody’s Investors Service ...

With issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities unable to keep pace with disappearing volume from vintage deals, bank and thrift holdings of non-agency MBS continue to decline. The holdings were down somewhat more than usual in the first quarter of 2015, suggesting sales by some banks. Banks and thrifts held $111.48 billion in non-agency MBS as of the end of the first quarter of 2015, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance Bank Mortgage Database. The holdings declined by 16.1 percent compared with the first quarter of 2014, including an 11.0 percent decline compared with the fourth quarter of 2014 ... [Includes one data table.]

$4.3 billion in rural housing loans with a U.S. Department of Agriculture guaranty were securitized during the first quarter of 2015, down 24.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014. Nearly all of the 10 leading USDA securitizers saw their issuances drop by more than 10 percent quarter over quarter, according to Inside FHA/VA Lending’s analysis of Ginnie Mae data. Stearns Lending reported the largest quarter and yearly declines in the volume of USDA loans securitized by Ginnie, 45.7 percent and 39.1 percent, respectively. On the other hand, the volume of securitized USDA loans rose 2.7 percent year over year. The top USDA loan securitizers, Chase Home Finance and Wells Fargo, led the market with a combined 45.9 percent market share. Chase funneled $1.3 billion in USDA-backed loans into Ginnie mortgage-backed securities while Wells Fargo delivered $621.0 million for securitization. Third-ranked PennyMac closed the quarter with $291.7 million in securitized USDA mortgage loans ... [ 1 chart ]

The frequently-asked-questions guidance to using the FHA’s consolidated Single Family Policy Handbook is good to have though it shows just how complicated the FHA’s mortgage origination process is, according to lenders. In fact, the updated FHA handbook could still be confusing to borrowers simply because a lot more information is concentrated in one source, lenders said. According to the FHA, the more than 290 FAQs will enable lenders to make operation adjustments before the handbook goes into effect on Sept. 14, 2015. The FAQs are for information purposes only and do not apply to current FHA policies. They do not establish or modify policy contained in the handbook. The FAQs reiterate information in the handbook under headings such as Credit Underwriting, Closing and Insuring, FHA System Support and Consumer Information. Industry observers noted that the FAQs did not ...

GNMA to Modernize Management of Loan Docs that Serve as Pool Collateral. Ginnie Mae plans to reform its document custody policies to minimize agency risks. Michael Drayne, Ginnie’s senior vice president of issuer and portfolio management, said the changes will apply to documents for loans that serve as collateral for securitized pools of mortgages. Current policies will be reexamined to see whether they adequately reflect and mitigate actual risks. Existing technology will be reevaluated as well. Ginnie will also study how to integrate document-custody functions and information into the agency’s systems. In addition, Ginnie will look at whether information about the status of pool collateral should be managed at the loan level, not merely the pool level. Furthermore, the agency will reevaluate the need to reexamine its enforcement methods and whether they should be ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau boosted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac business by some $132.9 billion when it gave the two government-sponsored enterprises a free pass on the debt-to-income ratio requirements of the qualified-mortgage rule. For the non-agency world, a qualified mortgage has to have a DTI ratio of 43 percent or less. While the government-insured market has its own QM rules that effectively ignore DTI, a loan eligible for sale to the GSEs is considered a qualified mortgage if it meets all the QM criteria – such as no interest-only payments – other than the DTI cap. From the beginning of 2014 through the end of the first quarter of this year, about 16.3 percent of the loans securitized by Fannie and Freddie had...[Includes two data tables]

The sale of RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing has fallen apart with the bidder walking away from the table, according to industry advisors close to the transaction. Sources indicate that Tavistock Group, the owner of the nation’s 24th largest servicer, still has an interest in finding a buyer for the servicer/lender, but for now no deal is imminent. Tavistock bills itself as an international private-equity firm with a strong interest in finance, real estate and other sectors. The firm is headquartered in the Bahamas. An advisor close to the transaction declined...

The outstanding supply of single-family MBS declined 0.7 percent during the first quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS market analysis. But that didn’t stop commercial banks from continuing to increase their holdings. Banks increased their aggregate MBS holdings by 3.1 percent from the fourth quarter, pushing their share of the MBS market to 22.9 percent. The only other investor group that managed to increase its stake was the credit union industry, which posted a 1.6 percent increase from the previous quarter. The Federal Reserve finally loosened...

There was widespread expectation that the latest round of seller-friendly changes to the government-sponsored enterprises’ representation-and-warranty framework would encourage lenders to liberalize their credit overlays. So far in 2015, the data aren’t showing it. In fact, the case could be made that credit trends are going the other way. The average credit score for purchase mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was...[Includes one data table]