Delinquencies on non-agency MBS will likely increase temporarily due to Hurricane Sandy, according to industry analysts, but long-term losses due to the storm are expected to be minimal. Insurance will play a key factor in overall losses, and estimates vary significantly on the extent of coverage in the affected areas. Moody’s Investors Service projected this week that non-agency MBS are unlikely to suffer material losses due to Sandy even though the affiliated Moody’s Analytics estimated the damage to residential housing from the storm will hit $10.5 billion. “Even if damages exceed...

The Securities and Exchange Commission last week approved a proposal from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to increase transparency regarding MBS and ABS trading. Hearing no public comments after it announced the proposal in September, the SEC agreed to FINRA’s plan to establish public reporting of trading in specified government-backed mortgage bonds and securities backed by Small Business Administration loans. According to the SEC notice published Oct. 23, the plan would leverage...

New pool level data issued by Ginnie Mae reveal a rising share of FHA-insured loans that have refinanced with grandfathered mortgage insurance premiums (MIP) in new Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities issuances, according to analysts. Of particular interest to investors is the share of borrowers with existing FHA-insured home loans who took advantage of an opportunity to refinance on advantageous terms under the FHA Streamline Refinance program, said analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Under the revised rules of the FHA Streamline Refi program, FHA-insured mortgages endorsed before June 1, 2009, were ...

Optimism in the non-agency MBS market’s recent extraordinary performance continues as investors look beyond legacy MBS to new transactions, such as Redwood Trust’s Sequoia jumbo securitizations, according to analysts. A recent analysis by Bank of America Merrill Lynch expects lower-yielding asset classes to push investors toward the non-agency MBS sector, where volumes are expected to remain at healthy levels for the rest of 2012. Analysts, however, noted...

Just two institutions – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – end up securitizing the vast majority of conventional home loans, but a large universe of lenders deliver a significantly diverse supply of loans to the government-sponsored enterprises. A new Inside Mortgage Finance special report based on loan-level securities disclosures reveals that 1,848 different institutions delivered single-family mortgages to the two GSEs during the third quarter. They ranged in size from Wells Fargo, which delivered nearly a quarter of mortgages securitized by Fannie and Freddie during the period, to Wisconsin-based Universal Mortgage Corp., which sold one small $39,000 loan to Fannie during the period. The report, GSE Seller Profile: 3Q12, shows...

Fixed-rate mortgages comprised most of August’s FHA production, which totaled $22.1 billion, up 13.2 percent from July and 37.9 percent from a year ago, according to an Inside FHA Lending analysis of FHA data. FRMs accounted for 98.9 percent of new loans with FHA insurance in August. In-house originations made up 79.6 percent of new endorsements while purchase loans accounted for 56.1 percent of FHA originations during the month. Wells Fargo is the only top FHA lender to exceed the billion-dollar mark. In fact, the bank reported $2.2 billion in new FHA originations, 76.0 percent of which were produced in-house. The purchase mortgage share of Well’s total FHA originations was ... [2 charts]

Top-tier, highly liquid consumer ABS are still attractive investments in today’s market, owing to strong technical factors and solid fundamentals, according to Barclays Capital. “Traditional consumer ABS continue to enjoy status as a safe haven asset class, especially in times of broader market volatility, and are an excellent cash surrogate for investors looking to put excess cash to work,” wrote research analyst Joseph Astorina, who cited the sector’s stable cash flow and ratings profiles, as well as consistent excess returns over swaps and Treasuries. In addition, this sector is...

The recent enactment of the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 includes a number of changes to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Loan Guaranty program, including reverting to the VA’s previous method of calculating maximum guaranty. The restoration of the previous method used to derive VA loan limits has resulted in the increase of some loan limits, according to guidance issued by the agency last week. While VA does not have a maximum loan amount, “county limits” must be used to calculate the maximum VA guaranty for a particular county. The maximum VA loan limit for 2012 in high-cost areas is ...

As the “shadow” banking sector has grown and evolved since the 1970s, questions have arisen as to the extent to which traditional banks may have been displaced by other financial institutions, insurance companies and entities as alternate sources of financing and the credit enhancement to securitization transactions. However, three economists at the New York Federal Reserve Bank recently found that, contrary to the notion that banks are being eclipsed by other institutions, banks have held their own against insurance companies involved in the enhancement business, despite their underdog status. “The first thing to note is that enhancements by insurance companies outnumber...

A recent Congressional report confirms there’s been a jump in the drop-out rates for students at for-profit colleges, and that’s bad news for investors in the securitizations backed by loans to these students, according to market analysts. “A two-year investigation by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions demonstrated that federal taxpayers are investing billions of dollars a year – $32 billion in the most recent year – in companies that operate for-profit colleges,” said a report by the committee. “Yet, more than half of the students who enrolled in those colleges in 2008-09 left without a degree or diploma within a median of four months. That compares with 46 percent in a study by the Department of Education of a 2003-04 cohort, which itself reflected...