The heavy role of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae in the post-crisis mortgage market has brought lower rates and considerable liquidity to the mortgage business, but industry leaders question whether private capital can meet the growing need to finance nonbank servicing portfolios and the eventual pullback of the Federal Reserve. “We wouldn’t have the same price we have now without the government being there; its programs provide a 2 to 3 percent discount,” said Stan Middleman, CEO of Freedom Mortgage Corp., during a panel session at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s secondary market conference this week. “They are the whole enchilada. If you took them out, we’d have nothing.” The government-sponsored enterprises are...

Marketplace lender Social Finance this month received seller/servicer approvals from Fannie Mae, but it remains to be seen just how active it will be in the secondary mortgage market. According to a spokesman for the privately held “SoFi,” the nonbank is now funding roughly $100 million per month in non-agency jumbos. According to firms that have done business with SoFi, it has sold the loans to OneWest Bank and Wells Fargo. To date, the online lender has yet to issue any ...

Retail loan originations account for most new VA lending, but the correspondent channel plays an outsized role in the FHA market, especially in purchase-mortgage lending, according to a new analysis of Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities data by Inside FHA/VA Lending. Over half (51.1 percent) of VA loans securitized through Ginnie MBS in the first quarter of 2016 were retail originations, but only 39.1 percent of FHA loans came through that channel. The biggest source of FHA loans was correspondent lenders, which accounted for 45.8 percent of loans securitized during the first three months of this year. That was actually slightly below the 49.2 percent correspondent share of FHA loans back in 2014 and 46.8 percent last year. Correspondents accounted for well over half (53.9 percent) of FHA purchase mortgages during the first quarter, while playing a more ... [ 3 charts ]

A lender that focuses on investment properties is preparing to issue a non-agency MBS backed by adjustable-rate mortgages on residential and commercial properties. The deal shares some characteristics with non-agency MBS backed by new loans, but it’s different in a lot of ways. The planned $358.60 million Velocity Commercial Capital 2016-1 received provisional AAA ratings this week from Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Residential properties account for 55.3 percent of the collateral, with small commercial properties making up the rest. All of the mortgages backing the planned MBS are for investment properties. Velocity Commercial Capital issued...

Underwriting standards on the four prime non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued in the first quarter of 2016 loosened marginally compared with the typical prime jumbo MBS issued in recent years, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. The combined loan-to-value ratio on prime non-agency MBS issued in the first quarter of 2016 averaged 69.8 percent. That was somewhat higher than the average combined ... [Includes one data chart]

Litigation over legacy residential MBS deals that went sour in the run-up to the financial crisis continued last week, as California Attorney General Kamala Harris sued investment bank Morgan Stanley for alleged misrepresentations about RMBS investments, which she said contributed to huge losses by investors such as the state’s public pension funds. In what is just the second such use of the False Claims Act by a state, Harris’ complaint, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that Morgan Stanley violated the FCA, as well as California securities law and other state laws, by allegedly hiding or downplaying the risks of complex investments involving large numbers of underlying loans or other assets. Harris used...

Ginnie Mae issued $93.41 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the first three months of 2016, an 8.6 percent drop from the previous quarter, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of loan-level MBS data, excluding FHA reverse-mortgage activity. Early 2016 was the slowest market in a year for Ginnie MBS production, though it still was stronger than most of the agency’s pre-2015 business. And issuance in the first quarter of 2016 was 17.0 percent ahead of the volume produced during the same period last year. The soft spot in the first quarter was FHA lending, especially purchase-mortgage activity. Issuers delivered $54.44 billion of FHA loans into Ginnie MBS during the period, a 12.1 percent drop from the fourth quarter, including a 15.0 percent decline in FHA purchase mortgages. Securitization of VA loans fell by a ... [4 charts].

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw a slight decline in their single-family mortgage business during the first three months of 2016 – in fact, it was the slowest quarter in nearly two years – according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. The two government-sponsored enterprises issued $172.97 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the first quarter of this year, a 3.4 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2015. It was the slowest three-month volume since the second quarter of 2014, and the fourth-lowest output since the GSEs were put in conservatorship back in 2008. The slowdown stemmed...[Includes three data tables]

Ginnie Mae securitization of jumbo mortgage loans with a VA guaranty rose significantly in 2015 despite a volume drop-off in the fourth quarter, according to Inside FHA/VA Lending’s analysis of agency data. Year-over-year results saw an almost 60 percent increase in Ginnie Mae mortgage securitization backed by VA jumbo loans. This was slightly dampened by 17.1 percent drop in VA MBS production in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter. All top-five VA jumbo securitizers – Wells Fargo, Freedom Mortgage Corp., PennyMac Corp., U.S. Bank, and Quicken Loans – reported significant drops quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. Wells Fargo delivered a total of $5.0 billion in VA jumbo loans into Ginnie pools, making it the leading jumbo securitizer in that segment. This accounted for 17.7 percent of the market. Freedom Mortgage ended the year with $2.1 billion in ... [ Charts ]

Issuers of publicly-registered ABS are adjusting to so-called Regulation AB2 requirements established by the Securities and Exchange Commission, but observers say the pro-investor rules have increased issuer costs and slowed issuance. One of the biggest challenges for issuers from Reg AB2 has been the requirement for an asset-representations reviewer. The rule requires publicly-registered MBS and ABS to include an asset-representation reviewer whose work can be triggered by a certain level of delinquent assets in a pool or by an investor vote. Susan Thomas, the associate general counsel of Ford Motor Credit Company, said...