Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expected to launch a study of mortgage servicing in 2017 and research ways to reach underserved borrower groups, but the new “scorecard” for the government-sponsored enterprises doesn’t portend big changes in their credit-risk transfer programs or the emerging common securitization platform. The most significant new initiative in the 2017 scorecard released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency this week is a new project to assess the mortgage servicing business model. The language is somewhat vague and broad-reaching: “initiate a multiyear assessment of both the challenges facing the mortgage servicing market and potential solutions for identified issues.” The new game plan specifically mentions...

The Structured Finance Industry Group this week put more flesh on the bones of its proposed deal-agent role in future non-agency MBS and introduced a plan for improved communications among MBS investors. The fifth edition of SFIG’s RMBS 3.0 Green Paper adds recommendations on data standardization, enforcement mechanisms for breaches of deal terms and materiality standards. The new proposal on bondholder communications was drafted...

New non-agency MBS issued in 2017 will likely include more diversified collateral and feature some structural changes, analysts at Moody’s Investors Service said in a new report this week. The rating service projected that non-agency prime jumbo volume will remain steady in 2017, while issuers will continue to explore non-traditional asset types, such as re-performing and non-performing loans, reverse mortgages, non-qualified mortgages and nonprime transactions. “Although prime jumbo deals will start to include loans with slightly lower FICOs and higher loan-to-value ratios than those loans included in 2016 transactions, collateral quality will remain...

The Structured Finance Industry Group published recommendations this week for loan-level data disclosure for ABS backed by unsecured consumer loans originated by marketplace lenders. The proposal was the first in a planned series of “Green Papers” from the trade group that will seek to support “responsible growth” in the issuance of ABS from marketplace lenders. “The best practices initiative, rooted in supporting the responsible growth of securitization in the marketplace sector, will seek to identify a framework of standards and work to identify gaps in application or understanding,” SFIG said. The trade group said...

Securitization of residential and commercial loans with Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) assessments has been growing over the last few years despite having only a few market players, prompting analysts to predict continued growth for the PACE securities market. Residential PACE financing has increased to $2.9 billion with 130,000 home upgrades since 2010, according to second quarter 2016 data from industry group PACE Nation. Commercial PACE financing, meanwhile, has grown to $304 million with 820 commercial projects over the same period. Three programs accounted...

Total FHA and VA originations increased during the first nine months of 2016 compared to the same period last year, although VA was more active, posting a double-digit production increase, according to an analysis of Ginnie Mae data. Lenders delivered $201.0 billion of FHA loans to Ginnie single-family mortgage pools over the last three quarters, up 4.8 percent from the previous year. Approximately 65.4 percent and 29.3 percent of FHA loans securitized were purchase loans and refinances, respectively. The remainder was loan modifications. VA originations totaled $143.2 billion over the same period, up 22.3 percent from last year. Refinances accounted for 51.9 percent of volume and purchase loans comprised 47.0 percent. The share of FHA loans in agency mortgage-backed securities for the nine-month period was 19.5 percent and 13.9 percent for VA. FHA loans accounted for ...

An affiliate of Bayview Asset Management is preparing to issue a non-agency MBS backed by nearly 5,000 vintage “daily simple-interest” mortgages, according to presale reports by DBRS and Fitch Ratings. If the deal is positively accepted by investors, there’s the potential for more issuance as Bayview is servicing a somewhat large portfolio of the loans. The planned $241.2 million Bayview Opportunity Master Fund Trust 2016-SPL1 is stocked with mortgages originated about 10 years ago. The loans – most of which have fixed interest rates – have a weighted-average interest rate of 8.926 percent. The so-called DSI mortgages differ from a standard mortgage in the calculation of interest owed by the borrower. With a standard mortgage, interest owed is calculated...

Freddie Mac is set to issue a $459.92 million Whole Loan Securities transaction, according to a presale report from Moody’s Investors Service. The firm didn’t rate the senior tranche of the deal but did place a Baa1 rating on a mezzanine tranche of Freddie Mac Whole Loan Securities 2016-SC02. The government-sponsored enterprise priced the latest WLS transaction this week, with the deal expected to close next week. “We are pleased with the pricing levels and depth of investor participation in the WLS program,” said Kevin Palmer, senior vice president of credit risk transfer at Freddie. “We look forward to continued issuance in 2017.” Freddie has issued...

Most loan characteristics for FHA and VA mortgages securitized by Ginnie Mae during the third quarter were consistent with prior periods, though there was an uptick in average loan size. In the FHA space, the average loan amount rose 2.9 percent during the third quarter to $193,352. For VA loans pooled in third-quarter Ginnie mortgage-backed securities, the average rose 2.0 percent to $257,772. That is...[Includes three data tables]

Freddie Mac has begun pilot testing its new Dealer Direct system for swapping legacy participation certificates for new single securities with a select group of dealers, the government-sponsored enterprise said in an update issued this week. In transitioning to the single security, Freddie will give all investors in its existing MBS that have a 45-day payment cycle the option to exchange them for the new 55-day securities. That process will be transacted through the Dealer Direct electronic platform. Holders of legacy MBS will work...