FHA delinquencies rose sharply in Puerto Rico following the devastation brought by hurricanes Maria and Irma last year. At the end of 2017, 28.8 percent of FHA mortgages on the island were at some stage of delinquency, including 15.8 percent that have fallen 90 days behind on their mortgage payments. Deutsche Bank Securities analysts believe the spike in delinquency rates overall is “a short-term phenomenon.” They noted that FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have declared temporary moratoria on evictions and foreclosures in Puerto Rico and other hurricane-ravaged regions. Issuer exposures in devastated areas remain unclear and Ginnie Mae has not updated its MBS hurricane exposure data since October last year. In the initial disclosure, the agency reported 9.7 percent (1,066,028 loans) of its total MBS portfolio were impacted by Harvey, Irma and Maria. The affected loans’ unpaid principal ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw declines in the flow of purchase and refinance loans into single-family mortgage-backed securities last month, starting 2018 on a sour note. The two GSEs produced a total of $67.48 billion of new single-family MBS in January, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis and ranking. That was down 8.8 percent from the previous month and off 26.4 percent from January 2017. It was the GSEs’ weakest monthly output since May 2017, and it would have been worse had Fannie not come up with $4.69 billion in mortgage securities backed by modified loans. Including those mod-backed deals, Fannie issuance was up 5.0 percent from December. Without them, the company’s new MBS issuance fell 5.7 percent in January.

The daily trading volume in agency MBS averaged $209.1 billion in 2017, the best showing in four years, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Statistical sampling, which gained widespread acceptance in MBS repurchase cases after the housing crisis, is being rejected in many courts today, legal experts say.

Ginnie Mae set records for new issuance of single-family mortgage-backed securities in 2015 and 2016, but production sagged last year, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. The agency issued $443.20 billion of MBS backed by forward single-family mortgages in 2017, a 10.8 percent decline from the previous year. Including FHA reverse mortgages and that are not truncated, 2017 issuance fell 10.3 percent to $455.00 billion. Meanwhile, the private mortgage insurance business – based on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS data – saw a smaller decline of 5.0 percent from 2016 to last year. The VA program generally held up better than the FHA program during the fourth quarter, when refinance lending was climbing. But the FHA had a better year overall despite some loss of market share in purchase-mortgage activity. Deliveries of FHA loans into ... [ Charts ]

S&P Global was the most active rating service in the non-mortgage ABS market during the first nine months, having graded $95.88 billion in new issuance, or 58.5 percent of the market, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis.

It’s been an ugly year for retail chain bankruptcies, which means investors in commercial MBS backed by such properties are continuing to feel queasy about some of the bonds they own.

The agency MBS market continued to grow at a measured pace during the third quarter of 2017, with several key investor groups showing interest in the market, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis.

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS inched up to $223.6 billion in November, the second best showing of the year, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Finan-cial Markets Association. The only other month that was stronger was January at $229.8 billion.

Ginnie Mae this week announced new guidelines to curb the churning of VA loans and high MBS prepayment speeds – the first in a series of measures developed by a joint Ginnie/VA task force to address the problem.