The Mortgage Bankers Association called upon Congress to pass legislation to restore Ginnie Mae eligibility for so-called orphaned VA loans, which have caused a temporary disruption in the government-backed secondary market. In written testimony to the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs last week, the MBA urged lawmakers to make technical corrections to restore the eligibility of certain Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans for pooling. The MBA estimated the VA orphan loan mess at roughly $500 million. Due to new loan seasoning requirements in the recently enacted Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, sime IRRRLs were rendered ineligible for Ginnie MBS pools. The loans were in transit when legislation addressing the problem of VA loan churning and serial refinancing became law in May. The new law’s seasoning provisions turned out to be ...

Fewer rural single-family mortgages and modified home loans with a USDA guarantee were securitized during the first six months of 2018 compared to last year. Delivery of USDA loans into Ginnie Mae pools over the last two quarters totaled $8.6 billion, down 10.1 percent from the same period last year but up 12.4 percent in the second quarter from the prior period. PennyMac topped all USDA issuers with $1.7 billion worth of rural housing MBS issued during the first half of 2018, up 22.1 percent year-over-year. New issuance also rose 30.0 percent in the second quarter from the previous quarter, enough for a 20.2 percent share of the securitized USDA market. ... [chart]

Appraisal reductions in post-crisis commercial MBS are rising rapidly and may be a harbinger of future loan losses, warned Kroll Bond Rating Agency.

Closures of stores that issued credit cards haven’t prompted a significant uptick in charge-offs in recent years, according to Fitch Ratings. Analysts suggest that consumer-related trends remain the main driver of credit card ABS performance, and performance looks poised to decline. A number of retail card issuers have declared bankruptcy, closed large numbers of stores or liquidated in recent years. Fitch analyzed the relevance of the aggregate number of locations closed per ...

The prepayment rates for ABS backed by Property Assessed Clean Energy programs are on the rise which can have mixed effects on the notes, warned Morningstar Credit Ratings in a new report. The monthly annualized conditional prepayment rates averages for residential PACE ABS rated by Morningstar have been increasing from “single digits to high teens” since 2016, said the credit rating service. “Investors should pay attention to prepayment rates because they can have ...

Interest-only loans represent a growing share of collateral securitized by commercial MBS conduits over the past few years. Credit rating agencies are concerned because IO loans generally perform worse than amortizing mortgages.

California remained the biggest market in the U.S. for primary mortgage insurance during the second quarter, but other states had higher proportions of insured loans, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of agency loan-level data. In Florida, Virginia and Georgia, more than 60 percent of agency loans carried some form of primary mortgage insurance ... [Includes one data chart]

The mortgage industry this week continued to look for ways to resolve the VA streamline refi loan mess, which arose from the implementation of statutory seasoning requirements under the Dodd-Frank reform act, even as Ginnie Mae pointed to Congress to come up with a solution. At issue is approximately $500 million worth of “orphaned” VA Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans that are now ineligible for Ginnie Mae securitization. The Mortgage Bankers Association is asking Congress for a legislative fix but is also looking for other forms of relief. Pete Mills, MBA’s senior vice president of residential policy and member management, is trying to drum up investor interest in the orphan loans, which, for now, appear destined for the secondary “scratch and dent” market. More buyers could potentially generate higher bids for the loans and lower losses for nonbanks that could not deliver them ...

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS fell to $223.2 billion in June, a slight decline from the month prior, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

The easing of qualified-mortgage standards under the Dodd-Frank reform bill could be credit negative for nonprime residential MBS backed by loans originated by nonbanks, Moody’s Investors Service said. But an industry expert disagrees.