JPMorgan Chase this week issued the largest jumbo mortgage-backed security seen since the market started to return in 2010. The $940.06 million deal was backed by adjustable-rate mortgages originated by First Republic Bank. Previously, the largest post-crash deal was a $666.13 million jumbo MBS from Redwood Trust in February 2013. Prior to the financial crisis, many non-agency MBS had balances that topped $1.0 billion, while most jumbo MBS ...

Regulators, rating services and investors are all targeting Ocwen Financial’s servicing of mortgages in non-agency mortgage-backed securities. Company officials responded by acknowledging some of the issues while strongly pushing back on others. Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service both recently downgraded Ocwen’s servicer ratings. When a servicer’s ratings fall below a certain level, non-agency MBS investors sometimes have the option to ...

After loosening every month for more than a year, underwriting on jumbo mortgages started to tighten in mid-2014, according to new data from the Mortgage Bankers Association and AllRegs. In the past three months, jumbo underwriting has started to loosen again and standards are the loosest they have been since early 2011.Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions announced that it launched a mini-correspondent offering for non-agency nonprime ... [Includes three briefs]

The Mortgage Bankers Association notched a win for small, independent issuers after the Financial Accounting Standards Board agreed with the group’s position on the accounting of seriously delinquent loans in Ginnie Mae pools. At issue is whether companies that service pools with loans that are 90 days or more delinquent should put those loans on their balance sheet even if they have no intention of buying the loans out of the pool. According to the MBA, a Big Four accounting firm issued controversial guidance which would have been burdensome for small mortgage-backed securities issuers that have limited funding and no incentive or history of buying defective loans out of pools. After months of exchanges, FASB staff finally agreed with the MBA’s view that the decision process involves two steps. First, a loan must be 90 days or more delinquent and trigger ...

A long-awaited proposal from the Federal Housing Finance Agency that would codify minimum net worth and liquidity requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seller/servicers received mostly good reviews from the industry, but there are concerns about some of the details. For the Mortgage Bankers Association, the chief worry centers around the agency’s liquidity requirements. Released late last week, the FHFA is asking...[Includes one data chart]

Pingora Asset Management is trying to raise $500 million of additional capital to buy mortgage servicing rights from eager sellers. If successful, it will bring the young company’s investment in residential receivables up to $1 billion. According to new figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance, Pingora owned $25.38 billion of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac residential servicing rights at yearend, ranking 24th among all servicers. Three years ago, it didn’t even exist. Company founder and Chief Executive Michael Lau was said...

Freddie Mac is set to sell a first-loss tranche on a Structured Agency Credit Risk transaction for the first time. The deal priced this week and the $880 million STACR 2015-DN1 is scheduled to settle next week. On previous STACR deals, Freddie has retained a tranche equaling at least the first 30 basis points of loss. Investor demand for the government-sponsored enterprises’ risk-sharing transactions has been strong but some have called for the GSEs to offer first-loss tranches, which can offer higher yields than the tranches that are more buffered from losses. Freddie said...

Ocwen Financial may have to settle with investors in non-agency MBS it services to avoid having the underlying servicing rights being yanked away by a trustee, according to investors and analysts tracking the situation. Early this week, Ocwen attorney Richard Jacobsen sent a letter to the law firm of Gibbs & Bruns, sternly telling the attorneys for some of the RMBS holders that there is no basis for default under the trust agreements. Gibbs & Bruns is working...

Production of structured finance deals backed by agency single-family pass-through securities fell sharply during the fourth quarter of 2014, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae issued a total of $44.41 billion of real estate mortgage investment conduits during the fourth quarter, down 25.5 percent from the previous period. Ginnie and Freddie, the most active agency REMIC issuers for the year, were responsible for most of the decline. On a year-to-date basis, Fannie production was...[Includes one data chart]

With interest rates at exceptionally low levels in recent years, borrowers have been reluctant to choose adjustable-rate mortgages. For those opting for ARMs, hybrids remain the most popular, according to results from the annual ARM survey recently released by Freddie Mac. ARMs accounted for 4.6 percent of the $921.72 billion in mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae in 2014 ... [Includes one data chart]