It will take about five years for the new common mortgage securitization platform being developed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to become fully functional, according to Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, DeMarco explained that the plan for a single MBS platform that would be run by a new government entity separate from Fannie and Freddie “does not mean we are consolidating the companies.” The platform would have its own CEO and chairman and office space separate from the two government-sponsored enterprises. It could, in time, be sold to the private sector, he said.

Credit Suisse issued a $422.2 million non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security last week with some of the loans in the private placement sourced from Two Harbors Investment. Two Harbors – a real estate investment trust that has been working to issue its own non-agency MBS for more than a year – is also expected to be the initial investor in the subordinate tranche of the MBS. CSMC Trust 2013-TH1 received AAA ratings from DBRS, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s, with 7.05 percent credit enhancement ...

Banks with major Ginnie Mae portfolios – and even smaller firms – increased their purchases of delinquent mortgages out of MBS pools in the fourth quarter compared to the third as a way to save money and refinance troubled loans. According to an analysis by Inside FHA Lending, the top 50 Ginnie Mae issuers bought $12.65 billion of problem loans out trusts in fourth quarter compared to $11.17 billion in the third, an increase of 13 percent. “Once you buy the loan it goes into your portfolio,” said Tim Rood, a partner in The Collingwood Group, a Washington-based advisory firm. “You can try to re-perform it and then re-securitize it,” he said. Wells Fargo, the largest Ginnie Mae servicer in the nation with a portfolio of $412 billion, purchased ... [1 chart]

Firms are looking to issue new non-agency mortgage-backed securities with looser representation and warranty standards than most post-crisis issuance, according to Fitch Ratings. The rating service issued a report this week critical of looser reps and warrants and pointed to Redwood Trust as an issuer with high standards for reps and warrants. “We believe that transactions with these more aggressive rep and warranty provisions have the potential to weaken a transaction and effectively reduce ...

The volume and market share of non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security issuance increased significantly in 2012 compared with other post-crisis years. However, volume remains well below activity seen even before the 2005 boom in non-agency MBS issuance. Some $3.46 billion in non-agency jumbo MBS were issued last year, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database, more than four times the volume issued in 2011. Redwood Trust issued six deals last year totaling ... [Includes one data chart]

After including a significant amount of ARMs in its first deal of 2013, Redwood Trust relied largely on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages for its second non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security of the year, according to presale reports released this week. The $666.13 million Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2013-2 is set to receive a triple-A rating with characteristics largely similar to other recent issuance from the real estate investment trust. While ARMs accounted for 21.0 percent of the dollar volume of SEMT 2013-1 ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac combined did more business in single-family mortgage-backed securities issuance in 2012 than in any year since 2003, with a growing share of their business coming from small and mid-sized lenders, according to an Inside The GSEs analysis. The two GSEs pumped out a staggering $1.266 trillion in new single-family MBS in 2012, a 48.1 percent increase over their total production in 2011. It marked the biggest annual output by Fannie and Freddie since the all-time record of $1.912 trillion nine years earlier.

Redwood Trust is set to issue its first non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security of the year, a portion of which will include ARMs and significant contributions from EverBank. The real estate investment trust said it is close to being able to issue one non-agency MBS a month this year, up from six in all of 2012. Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2013-1 largely includes characteristics common to other recent Redwood deals, including 7.30 percent credit enhancement for the two tranches set to receive AAA ratings from Fitch Ratings, Kroll Bond Rating Agency and Moody’s Investors Service. However, ARMs have not been included in a Redwood deal since a January 2012 issuance. ARMs will account...

A new non-agency jumbo MBS from a subsidiary of Credit Suisse Group includes some key differences compared with Redwood Trust deals, while pumping life into the non-agency market. DLJ Mortgage Capital issued a $329.89 million non-agency jumbo MBS late last week via a private placement; it was the company’s third of 2012. CSMC Trust 2012-CIM3 received a AAA rating from Standard & Poor’s with credit enhancement of 5.85 percent on the top-rated tranche. The new Credit Suisse deal included...