After soaring to nearly a four-year high in September, monthly production of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae MBS starting coming to earth in October. The three agencies issued a total of $146.68 billion of single-family MBS last month, down 8.8 percent from September. Even with the downturn, October still ranked as the second-highest monthly issuance since June 2013. Year-to-date production edged...[Includes two data tables]

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee appears to be repeating last year’s story line of promising multiple increases in interest rates at the start of the year, only to delay and delay until the final month, when it finally raised rates a bare minimum of 25 basis points. This month, the Fed passed on another opportunity to raise rates and suggested to many in the market that it finally will ratchet the federal funds target rate up a notch at its final meeting of the year in mid-December. The FOMC said the labor market has continued to strengthen and economic activity has picked up from the modest pace seen in the first half of this year. “Although the unemployment rate is little changed in recent months, job gains have been solid,” the committee said. Meanwhile, household spending has risen...

Investors said that market is in the “sweet spot” when it comes to mortgage credit, while speaking at a symposium in Washington sponsored by the Urban Institute and CoreLogic this week. John Vibert, managing director and co-head of structured products for Prudential, said his company is much more interested in financing nonperforming loans than in owning such assets. “We think...

Most loan characteristics for FHA and VA mortgages securitized by Ginnie Mae during the third quarter were consistent with prior periods, though there was an uptick in average loan size. In the FHA space, the average loan amount rose 2.9 percent during the third quarter to $193,352. For VA loans pooled in third-quarter Ginnie mortgage-backed securities, the average rose 2.0 percent to $257,772. That is...[Includes three data tables]

With no blockbuster mergers and a relatively subdued secondary market in mortgage servicing rights, glacial momentum continued to reshape the mortgage servicing business during the third quarter of 2016, according to new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. The two forces that have had the biggest impact over the past few years are the growth of nonbanks and the gradual deconsolidation of the servicing market. The combined portfolio of the 23 nonbanks that ranked among the top 50 servicers as of the end of the third quarter jumped 6.9 percent in just three months. The nonbank share of the $7.389 trillion serviced by the top 50 players in the market rose...[Includes two data tables]

New issuance of commercial mortgage securities increased substantially during the third quarter, with both the private and agency sectors posting solid gains, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. A total of $53.14 billion of income properties were securitized during the third quarter, a 33.4 percent increase from the previous period and the strongest three-month output since the second quarter of last year. That brought year-to-date issuance to $137.74 billion, off 12.4 percent from the pace set in the first nine months of 2015, and it would take a huge fourth-quarter surge for the market to reach last year’s total. Non-agency commercial MBS production rose...[Includes one data table]

Allegations in an impending government MBS fraud case against Moody’s Corp. will likely mirror allegations of fraud and misrepresentation in a 2013 civil suit against Standard & Poor’s, according to industry observers. Moody’s disclosed the expected case in a recent filing of third-quarter earnings results with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the credit rating agency, lawsuits are likely pending from both the Department of Justice and state attorneys general over ratings of MBS in the years leading up to the financial crisis. In a letter dated Sept. 29, 2016, the DOJ informed...

Single-family rental securitization is increasing as spreads have recovered after sell-offs seen earlier this year, according to analysts. While issuance volume will likely be down this year compared with recent years, various factors point to relatively strong issuance of SFR securities going forward. Through September, $2.70 billion in SFR securities had been issued in 2016, according to commercial MBS data tracked by Inside MBS & ABS. That compares to $7.17 billion for all of last year. While issuance has lagged this year, Ying Shen, a research analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, said...

Bayview Financial is set to issue the first re-securitization backed by subordinate tranches from risk-sharing deals issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fitch Ratings placed an A-minus rating on the planned $159.60 million Bayview Opportunity Master Fund IVb Trust 2016-CRT1. The transaction is backed by 12 securities from Fannie’s Connecticut Avenue Securities transactions and Freddie’s Structured Agency Credit Risk transactions issued in 2014 and 2015. The securities in the re-securitization are CAS M2 and STACR M3 tranches. All but one of the underlying securities rely...

Late this week or early next, Ginnie Mae is expected to release a new and improved acknowledgement agreement, a move intended to allow nonbanks to borrow more easily against the asset value of their mortgage servicing rights. But the big question remains: Will the agency’s tweaks have much of an impact on liquidity? There is...