High guarantee fees and loan-level pricing adjustments charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not enough to counteract lingering MBS investor mistrust and draw private players back into the housing finance market, according to a top industry official. “The Federal Housing Finance Agency seems to believe that by raising costs for loans purchased or guaranteed by the government-sponsored enterprises, they can lure private sector capital back to the mortgage market ...

Vintage prime adjustable-rate mortgages went delinquent at a rate 30 percent higher when they were securitized privately, according to an economist with the Federal Reserve System. The study was based on mortgages originated in 2005 and 2006, at the height of the aggressive underwriting in the non-agency mortgage market. “We find that private-securitized loans perform worse than observably similar, non-securitized loans, which provides evidence for adverse selection ...

The latest jumbo mortgage-backed security from Two Harbors Investment is set to have the lowest credit enhancement levels of any deal issued this year, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Strong performance and underwriting characteristics along with repeat issuance appears to have helped decrease credit enhancement requirements for the transaction. The $241.06 million Agate Bay Mortgage Trust 2015-3 received a preliminary AAA rating ... [Includes one data chart]

Mortgage brokers played an increasingly important role in the conventional conforming market during the first quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mortgage brokers were responsible for $23.8 billion of single-family mortgages securitized by the two government-sponsored enterprises during the first three months of this year. That was up 16.0 percent ... [Includes two data charts]

The refinance program for performing, underwater Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages staggered to a five-year low during 2014, but government officials are thinking about keeping it on life support for another year. The Home Affordable Refinance Program is slated to expire at the end of 2015. Although the Federal Housing Finance Agency has barnstormed around the country trying to drum up business, activity in the program has fallen steadily since ... [Includes two data charts]

In 2014, Freddie Mac securitized $6.983 billion of re-performing mortgages, double what it did the year prior, and a sign that this niche market is heating up. As for Fannie Mae’s participation in “re-performers,” that’s a different matter entirely. The government-sponsored enterprise has yet to stick its toe in the water, though a spokesman for the company told Inside MBS & ABS that “it’s something we continue to evaluate.” But just how hot might the sector get ...

Mortgages with credit scores exceeding 740 continued to dominate the conventional conforming market in 2014, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year. High-score borrowers accounted for 62.0 percent of loans securitized through the two government-sponsored enterprises in 2014. They accounted for an even bigger 66.2 percent of purchase-mortgages loans ... [Includes one data chart]

The two main types of representation-and-warranty frameworks used in jumbo mortgage-backed securities can both effectively protect investors, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Each framework presents different risks, and industry participants suggest that other aspects of deals carry more importance for investors. Jumbo MBS issued in recent years have largely included either an open-ended rep-and-warrant framework or a prescriptive framework ...

Security issuances backed by FHA and VA loans totaled $267.6 billion in 2014, with several large states accounting for a significant share of FHA/VA originations. An estimated $158.1 billion of FHA-insured loans, including modified loans, were securitized last year, with purchase home loans comprising most of the transactions. Approximately $30.0 billion of FHA refinance loans were securitized as well. The FHA MBS had an average loan-to-value ratio of 92.3 percent and a debt-to-income ratio of 40.1 percent. The average FICO score was 672.3, which was indicative of first-time homebuyers and borrowers with slightly tainted credit. First-ranked California, Texas (#2) and Florida (#3) combined for a total of $48.0 billion, which represented 30.3 percent of FHA loans in Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities in 2014. Fourth-ranked New York reported a total of $6.7 billion while ... [ 2 charts]

Issuer registration for Ginnie Mae’s Issuer Performance Scorecard has been somewhat slower than expected, according to agency officials. The reason is unclear but only about 70 issuers so far have registered for Ginnie’s Issuer Operational Performance Profile (IOPP) tool since its launch on Feb. 17, 2015. Officials said they need to sign two-thirds more to get the IOPP system up to full speed. In a recent outreach call, officials urged those issuers who have not yet registered to contact their security officers for authority to access the Ginnie Mae Enterprise Portal (GMEP), the gateway to the IOPP system. Issuers must first be enrolled in GMEP before their security officer can grant them authority to access the IOPP system. The IOPP, also known as the Issuer Performance Scorecard, will rate each issuer’s operational performance and default management and compare them to ...