Ginnie Mae issuer applications are beginning to slow thanks to declining FHA and VA production, but lenders that play in the space are beginning to wonder whether they should be paying closer attention to the “compare ratios” that measure delinquencies. According to industry advisors, there are new concerns that the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development may be expanding its investigation of firms that have significant claims rates on FHA loans. Four years ago, the HUD IG made a big splash when it issued subpoenas to 15 mortgage lenders with unusually high claim rates. Since that announcement, little information on settlements with the 15 has come...

Charge-offs in the credit-card ABS sector reached a new low in the first quarter of 2014, due mostly to a steady decline in delinquencies and lower bankruptcy rates, according to Fitch Ratings. Loss rates continued to break new records heading into 1Q14, falling to 2.89 percent during the latest March distribution period, even as average charge-offs dropped to a record 3.00 percent for 1Q14 from 3.04 percent in 4Q13. “This marks 15 consecutive quarters of improvement and is approximately 25 percent lower year-over-year,” said Fitch Ratings Credit Card ABS Group Managing Director Michael Dean and Director Herman Poon in a new report. Late payments also fell...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $45.4 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities during the month of April, a 20.6 percent increase from March, reversing more than a year-long streak of declines, according to an Inside The GSEs analysis. However, April’s MBS issuance was down 63.0 percent from the same period a year ago.Top-ranked Wells Fargo’s Fannie and Freddie securitization, at $6.28 billion, rose by 23.1 percent on a monthly basis but dropped 73.3 percent year-to-date.

A new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of agency mortgage-backed securities data shows that mortgage production fell sharply in virtually all states during the first quarter. The top three states – California, Texas and Florida – fared somewhat better than the overall market. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securitized some $34.9 billion of California single-family mortgages during the first quarter of 2014, down 25.4 percent from the fourth quarter. But the overall agency MBS market fell 27.2 percent over that period. Texas, down 41.4 percent from the first quarter of 2013, and Florida (off 48.7 percent) both had...[Includes one data chart]

A total of $32.6 billion of income-property mortgages were securitized during the first three months of 2014, a soft beginning for a market that posted its best year since the financial collapse during 2013. Commercial mortgage securitization – including non-agency commercial MBS and multifamily securitizations by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae – declined by 22.1 percent in the first quarter of 2014. Total issuance was off 30.4 percent from the same period last year. Both agency and non-agency issuance was...[Includes two data charts]

Ginnie Mae has asked Bank of America to provide missing documents on government insured loan pools after being informed by the MBS custodian that key paperwork is missing from the files. According to industry advisors familiar with the matter, the missing documents are tied to an $8 billion mortgage-servicing sale from BofA to PennyMac. So far, both parties have declined to discuss the matter publicly. One observer noted...

UBS AG and Union Central Life Insurance Co. this week announced they have settled their legal dispute regarding the sale of residential MBS that UBS sold to the insurer in the years leading up to the financial crisis. The settlement reached in early March but jointly announced just this week, ends the legal action begun in a New York federal court in 2011. Union Central and affiliates Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. and Acacia Life Insurance Co. sued UBS and other financial service companies and executives in 2011, alleging that the defendants misrepresented the quality of the loans underlying the residential MBS that they sold to the insurers. In a 2012 amended complaint, Union Central alleged...

A number of underwriting characteristics for jumbo mortgages included in non-agency mortgage-backed securities shifted in the first quarter of 2014, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. And the decline in jumbo MBS activity during the quarter has prompted industry analysts to significantly reduce projections for issuance the rest of this year. Average credit scores declined, debt-to-income ratios increased and ... [Includes one data chart]

Kroll Bond Rating Agency, one of the most commonly used rating services for jumbo mortgage-backed securities in recent years, released its criteria this week for jumbo MBS that include mortgages subject to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability to repay rule. The criteria from KBRA is similar to criteria from the other rating services, with higher credit enhancement requirements for certain loans that don’t meet the CFPB’s standards for qualified mortgages ...

Industry participants are divided on whether legislation under consideration in Congress to reform the government-sponsored enterprises will help encourage an increase in private capital in the mortgage market. In a speech this week, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was adamant that the GSE reform bill from Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID, will encourage non-agency investors to return to the mortgage market ...