Investors in the secondary market are continuing to shy away from mortgages with so-called TRID errors – even minor ones – taking the advice of legal counsel and due diligence providers who are telling them to stay clear because of assignee liability issues. Late last week, senior executives from the Structured Finance Industry Group traveled to Washington to meet CFPB Director Richard Cordray, but one official familiar with the get-together said the regulator conveyed a message of “Thanks for coming in, but we don’t think there’s a problem.” For now, most of the concern about a stalled secondary market has focused...

The advent of mobile phone financing has given U.S. asset-backed securitization a new twist with its unique risks and strengths relative to other consumer ABS, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service. Mobile phone financing represents a shift from the previous business model of subsidizing phone purchases for customers with two-year service contracts. Many cell-phone makers and wireless carriers, such as Apple, Samsung Electronics, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, now use financing contracts in most of their phone sales. The most common form of financing is...

Fitch Ratings proposed a number of changes to its residential MBS loss model this week, as part of an annual review. The changes would prompt slightly lower loss expectations for most of the types of deals that are currently being issued. The rating service said the most meaningful proposed change with a positive implication on loss expectations is expected to be a lower default assumption for borrowers with strong equity positions. The lower default assumption was prompted by a proposed Cure Rate Adjustment. Fitch said...

Non-agency mortgage-backed security issuers and investors continue to work to make adjustments that will help increase activity in the market. Among the issues under discussion are representations and warranties and the use of a deal agent or transaction manager. “Industry participants are now focusing on clearly identifying which parties to a transaction are covered by the current rep-and-warrant framework, and to which activities it is applicable,” according to a recent report ...

AG Mortgage Investment Trust recently formed a mortgage banking platform called Arc Home. The real estate investment trust managed by a subsidiary of Angelo, Gordon & Co. said Arc Home plans to originate jumbo mortgages and non-qualified mortgages, along with FHA loans, through retail, wholesale and correspondent channels. Arc Home will be led by Barry Bier, Sandy Blitzer, Martin Schroeter and Brad Brautigam. Some of the executives ... [Includes five briefs]

Sellers delivered $35. 2 billion in VA loans into Ginnie Mae pools in the fourth quarter of 2015, down 15.0 percent from the previous quarter, according to Inside FHA/VA Lending’s analysis of Ginnie loan-level data. Retail lenders and correspondents accounted for the bulk of VA loans securitized during the quarter. Retail accounted for 45.8 percent of VA purchase loans, enjoying a slight edge over correspondents, which comprised 45.5 percent of securitized VA loans. The broker share of securitized VA purchase loans was 8.7 percent, down 21.2 percent from the third quarter. Meanwhile, retail accounted for 53.8 percent of Ginnie mortgage-backed securities backed by VA refinance loans in the fourth quarter, while correspondents’ share was down to 28.5 percent. The broker channel accounted for 17.7 percent of VA loans securitized during the period. The average FICO score on Ginnie VA loans in the ... [1 chart]

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae produced a combined $88.96 billion of single-family MBS in January, a modest 1.4 percent decline from December, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. Ginnie production was actually up 7.2 percent from the previous month, while both the government-sponsored enterprises posted declines in new issuance. January’s agency MBS production included...[Includes two data tables]

Jefferies Funding is underwriting a securitization of a revolving warehouse facility for agency mortgages originated by two nonbanks. The $225.0 million Station Place Securitization Trust 2016-1 received provisional Aaa ratings this week from Moody’s Investors Service. The rating service said the transaction is based on a “back-to-back” repo structure, with the three classes of notes scheduled to be paid off one year after issuance. The proceeds from the sale of the notes will be used by the issuer to purchase eligible mortgages and participation certificates from the repo seller. The revolving warehouse facility will be sponsored...

The outlook for publicly traded real estate investment trusts that invest in agency MBS and related products is starting to improve, in part, because competing investments are looking ugly. That might seem like a small consolation prize for REITs, but several are posting decent earnings, even though the book value of their common stock is relatively weak. Meanwhile, while certain investors shun their stocks, many companies have engaged...

Securitizations backed by proceeds from franchises such as Domino’s Pizza and Dunkin Brands hit a record in terms of issuance volume in 2015. Industry participants suggest the market for such deals, known as whole-business securitizations, is set to expand due to growing interest from investors. There was more than $7.0 billion in WBS issuance in 2015, exceeding the issuance of the three prior years combined, according to Cory Wishengrad, a senior managing director and head of structured products origination at Guggenheim Securities. Wishengrad and others involved with structuring franchise/royalty securitizations spoke at a recent roundtable hosted by Standard & Poor’s. “The WBS sector has made...