With financial markets awaiting, with some uncertainty, the public policy positions of the incoming Trump administration and the new Congress, industry analysts say ABS investors can expect most sectors to turn in stable performances in 2017. “As we look back on 2016 and consider the 2017 global structured finance outlook, most markets and their credit conditions seem favorable, and in some cases, even ideal. However, 2017 has many unknowns, especially the specific policies and priorities that will be adopted by the new U.S. administration,” said analysts with S&P Global Ratings in a recent outlook report. “Some would suggest government-sponsored enterprise privatization is possible, risk retention could be revised, and an appropriate/globally consistent capital treatment for structured finance products could be approved.” Further, “For the most part, we expect...

In late December, Freddie Mac issued a $934.27 million security backed by seasoned mortgages. It was the first seasoned credit-risk transfer from the government-sponsored enterprise. While Freddie has issued fully guaranteed securitizations backed by seasoned mortgages, Freddie Mac Seasoned Credit Risk Transfer Trust, Series 2016-1 included tranches without a guarantee from the GSE, similar to a non-agency senior-sub MBS. The transaction included...

With structured finance performance having peaked for many sectors, analysts at Fitch Rating and S&P Global Ratings anticipate some modest asset-level deterioration in 2017 – most notably in both prime and subprime auto ABS. On the other hand, they expect relatively stable performance from credit card ABS. “Both prime and subprime auto ABS loss rates could be...

Ginnie Mae guaranteed a total of $507.46 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities in 2016, its biggest annual volume ever, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. That was up 16.4 percent from the agency’s previous record of $435.80 billion set in 2015. (Those figures include MBS backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages, which are not included in the table below or in the rankings on pages 3-5.) In 2016, Ginnie guaranteed $497.03 billion of MBS backed by traditional forward mortgages, also a record, which was up 16.9 percent from the previous year. The biggest factor in last year’s record-setting production was the boom in VA lending, particularly VA refinance loans. Issuers securitized a record $203.03 billion of VA loans last year, up 33.0 percent from the 2015 total. Some 54.3 percent of those loans were refinance transactions. Total VA refi loan ... [4 charts]

Mortgage lenders delivered a hefty $299.25 billion of single-family home loans into the mortgage-backed securities platforms at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. Production in the final three months of 2016 was up just 5.7 percent from the third quarter at the two government-sponsored enterprises. But it was the biggest output since the second quarter of 2013, when the mortgage market was wrapping up a 12-month binge of activity with $337.74 billion in Fannie/Freddie MBS issuance. The strong finish – GSE business was up in each quarter of 2016 – put...[Includes three data tables]

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...