MBS and ABS investors have more cash than they know what to do with, according to participants at the ABS East conference sponsored by Information Management Network this week. “Liquidity is strong across the spectrum and probably the best we’ve ever seen for structured products,” said Scott Levy, a senior managing director at Guggenheim Securities. He noted that three years ago, some of the securities the firm was involved with had 15 investors; now, similar deals might have 70 investors. “There’s a lot of demand and a lot less supply,” Levy added. More than 4,100 people registered...

An affiliate of Interval Leisure Group priced a timeshare securitization last week as the market for such deals keeps humming along. Timeshare securities are backed by vacation ownership interest loans that tend to perform relatively well and carry attractive yields. Some $2.0 billion of timeshare ABS have priced this year, according to S&P Global Ratings. In all of 2016, $2.6 billion of timeshare ABS was issued, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. VSE 2017-A VOI Mortgage from ILG is...

Redwood Trust has seen strong demand from borrowers and correspondent lenders for its “expanded prime” program that the aggregator introduced last year. The real estate investment trust’s Choice products allow for somewhat looser underwriting than the super-prime mortgages that have dominated the jumbo market after the financial crisis. The Choice program was introduced in April 2016. Volume has increased relatively quickly and could top $1.0 billion this year. Officials say...

Redwood Trust is preparing to issue its first non-agency mortgage-backed security backed by “expanded prime” mortgages. In the second quarter, Redwood acquired approximately $240.0 million of such mortgages, which have somewhat looser underwriting standards than what’s typically seen in the jumbo MBS market. Clayton Holdings reviewed 417 mortgages for the planned issuance, according to documents filed Aug. 30 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The total unpaid principal balance of the loans wasn’t disclosed. The deal will include...

First-time homebuyers accounted for $170.3 billion of securitized purchase mortgages during the first half of 2017, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of loan-level data for mortgage-backed securities issued by Ginnie mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Purchase-mortgage origination to first-time homebuyers was up 15.7 percent year-over-year and comprised 50.3 percent of total purchase-mortgage loans securitized during the six-month period. FHA accounted for 36.8 percent ($61.4 billion) of first-time homebuyer purchase mortgages delivered into agency pools from beginning to midyear, while conventional purchase mortgages with private mortgage insurance accounted for 28.3 percent ($48.3 billion) over the same period. FHA and private MI are the two leading mortgage insurers for first-time homebuyers. Together, they have provided mortgage insurance for nearly ... [Charts]

As Hurricane Harvey’s floodwaters recede, federal agencies that provide guarantees on mortgages are faced with the daunting task of identifying and assisting borrowers with government-backed mortgages in disaster-stricken areas of Texas. FHA, VA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service and Ginnie Mae have issued special relief guidance for approved lenders following Hurricane Harvey. The FHA has issued guidance to remind lenders and servicers that FHA-insured mortgages secured by properties in a presidentially-declared major disaster area are subject to a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures following a natural disaster. FHA also provides lenders an automatic 90-day extension upon expiration of the moratorium to begin or re-start foreclosure action or evaluate the borrower’s need for loss mitigation. In addition, FHA urged servicers to brush up on the 203(h) and the ...

Fitch Ratings announced last week that non-agency MBS with a unique structure will be eligible to receive AAA ratings. The rating service said deals with a shifting-interest structure are now eligible for the top ratings after previously limiting ratings on such deals to single-A. Both DBRS and S&P Global Ratings have assigned AAA ratings to some MBS backed by re-performing mortgages where the deals had shifting-interest structures. MBS with such structures distribute...

Ginnie Mae will not have an annual summit this year but has rescheduled it for January 2018, according to Ginnie Mae’s new spokesperson. Michael Huff, senior advisor, congressional and stakeholder relations, said a new administration and staff departures have caused organizers to reconsider having the annual Ginnie Mae Summit this year, usually held in October. The Trump administration has yet to announce a nominee for the top job at Ginnie Mae since former president Ted Tozer left in January. David Kittle is reportedly a leading contender, but there has been no official announcement or confirmation. So far, Kittle has declined to comment. Kittle is a mortgage industry veteran who began as a loan officer and now heads his own company. He also was a top executive with the Mortgage Bankers Association and managed, among other things, the group’s political action committee. In addition, Kittle co-founded the ...

Ginnie Mae this week announced the full automation of Platinum securities processing and issuance – a key step in modernizing the agency’s outdated technology and infrastructure. Automation went into effect in mid-July and nearly $1 billion of the Platinum pools have been processed through the MyGinnieMae portal, the agency said in a statement. MyGinnieMae is a self-servicing portal that connects users and enables collaboration and the sharing of organizational knowledge, the agency explained. The year-to-date volume for Platinum mortgage-backed securities is $6.1 billion. Ginnie’s Multiclass Securities Program allows participating issuers to pool some of their MBS into a single Platinum trust, which issues securities based on the pool. A Platinum security is designed to improve liquidity of Ginnie MBS through trades or use in structured finance and repurchase transactions. Previously, Platinum products were ...

Large banks continue to dominate the business of servicing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac home loans, but a group of hard-charging non-depository institutions are gaining ground. A new Inside The GSEs analysis of Fannie and Freddie mortgage-backed securities disclosures shows that total single-family MBS outstanding actually declined slightly, by 0.1 percent, during the second quarter. This was due to a 0.3 percent drop in Fannie MBS servicing – the figures do not include servicing of whole loans held by the enterprises – while the Freddie market grew 0.3 percent. Some 46.2 percent of Fannie/Freddie MBS servicing was held by banking organizations with more than $100 billion in assets. That included four of the top five GSE servicers and seven of the top 10.