The U.S. residential housing market used to provide the lion’s share of business for non-agency asset securitization, but experts at this week’s American Securitization Forum say it will take years for the sorely damaged housing market to recover and the nationalized mortgage finance system to be overhauled. Supply and demand fundamentals in the housing market are severely broken, said Laurie Goodman, senior managing director at Amherst Securities Group. There are some 2.9 million borrowers in foreclosure or more than 12 months delinquent, plus another 400,000 units of real estate-owned properties. With...

With a price tag of $100 billion required to forgive the principal of underwater Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages, the best bet for the government-sponsored enterprises and for taxpayers is for the GSEs to pursue a policy of principal forbearance, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said. This week, the FHFA released its analysis conducted in 2010 following numerous requests and an eventual threat of subpoena by House Democrats. The agency’s number crunchers found that “principal reduction never serves the long-term interest of the taxpayer when compared to foreclosure.” As of June 30, 2011, Fannie and Freddie...

The aging of the subprime and prime mortgages that back the shrinking universe of non-agency MBS is gradually changing the performance trends of these loans, according to analysts speaking at a Fitch Ratings conference in New York this week. Selection bias – changes in the composition of the remaining subprime and prime mortgage pools as borrowers default or refinance – will mean different things for different asset classes, but differences between the two will likely become less pronounced over the next year, analysts said. Grant Bailey, a managing director at Fitch, explained that in many ways...

Despite lower mortgage rates, MBS prepayment speeds slowed across the board in December, particularly for the recent low coupons, while speeds for higher coupons were up slightly, according to securitization analysts. Researchers varied slightly in their estimates, saying speeds for 30-year Fannie Mae securities slowed 2-6 conditional prepayment rate for the recent low coupons (3.5-4.5 percent from 2011 and 2010). Barclays Capital analysts attributed the slowdown to reduced refinancing activity during the December holiday season. The weighted average CPR for all Fannie Mae MBS declined to...

Some mortgage servicers have done a better job than others in adjusting to a market environment of high default and foreclosure rates, according to a new Barclays Capital report, and the difference can have a significant impact on the value of non-agency mortgage securities they service. Servicing is not as easy as it used to be and has come much more under the spotlight, Barclays noted. Servicers have to work with distressed borrowers to determine whether loan modification, refinance or liquidation is the most appropriate response. Servicer performance can be shaped by the composition of...

The supply of outstanding single-family MBS in the market fell 0.6 percent during the third quarter of 2011, according to a new analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. There was a total of $6.544 trillion of single-family MBS outstanding at the end of September, the lowest level since the third quarter of 2007. Although MBS supplies have been declining steadily over the past four years, securitized loans actually represent a historically high 63.3 percent of total home loan debt outstanding as of the end of the third quarter. The steepest decline is in non-agency MBS, a...(Includes one data chart)

Major mortgage servicers are widely expected to agree to principal reduction for some struggling homeowners as part of the price of settling complaints over foreclosure practices brought by state attorneys general. That idea doesn’t sit well with some MBS investors, who are concerned that they will end up paying some of the cost of reducing principal as a way to keep distressed borrowers in their homes. The Association of Mortgage Investors warns that principal reduction of securitized loans would be akin to forcing the middle class to bear the settlement’s burden. In a statement, the AMI warned that principal reductions could...

Four years after the credit crisis, analysts at Fitch Ratings expect eventual losses from structured finance transactions to soar from current levels, about $94 billion, or 2.7 percent of the original balance of rated transactions, to $376 billion, or 10.6 percent, by the time the dust settles. And the primary culprit, of course, is residential MBS. “Fitch expects a further 9,754 tranches to not recover their full principal, representing 33 percent of all tranches and increasing the proportion of tranches with realized or expected losses to 63 percent of the total...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost a combined $9.2 billion during the third quarter – mostly due to writedowns on derivatives transactions – while the two government-sponsored enterprises continued to watch their massive MBS holdings decline. As of the end of September, Fannie and Freddie held a combined $754.54 billion of MBS in their retained portfolios, down 1.1 percent from the second quarter and a decline of 7.4 percent from the same July through September period last year. Fannie’s holdings of non-agency MBS fell 2.2 percent to $77.1 billion during... (Includes one data chart)

Recent non-agency mortgage loan modifications are showing better results compared to earlier private-label modifications despite a continued slowdown in new modification activity, according to a new Fitch Ratings analysis. While the number of completed modifications dropped, transactions completed in the past 18-24 months have improved slightly over earlier programs as a result of standardized guidelines, the recent Fitch report said. Patterned on the Home Affordable Modification Program, the standardized guidelines helped to focus attention on creating more sustainable modifications. These features included...