The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. have announced offerings of multiple residential reverse mortgage pools for sale to investors. The HUD pools are comprised of approximately 650 reverse mortgage notes with a total loan balance of about $136 million. The sale consists of due and payable first-lien reverse mortgages secured by single-family, vacant residential properties where all borrowers are deceased and none is survived by a non-borrowing spouse. The reverse-mortgage sale is the third offering of its type. As with past offerings, the sale will be by competitive bidding on April 11, 2018. The loans will be sold without FHA insurance and with servicing released. The loans are expected to be offered in regional pools. Meanwhile, the FDIC will unload in open auction 3,280 FHA-insured reverse-mortgage loans from the ...

The volume of FHA and VA loans securitized in Ginnie Mae pools in 2017 declined from the previous year, according to an analysis of agency data. FHA loans delivered into Ginnie mortgage-backed securities last year totaled $250.5 billion, down 8.7 percent from 2016. Purchase loans comprised 69.6 percent of Ginnie MBS issuances backed by FHA loans over the 12- month period, while refinances accounted for 24.8 percent. FHA borrowers had an average FICO score of 675.3, suggesting a more traditional borrower base of first-time homebuyers and borrowers with credit issues. The FHA loans that were securitized had an average loan-to-value ratio of 92.8 percent and a debt-to-income ratio of 41.3 percent. California led all states in FHA mortgage securitization, with $39.0 billion for all of last year. FHA originations, however, dropped 16.6 percent year-over-year. The other top states in terms of ... [ charts ]

The CFPB’s impact on the mortgage-backed security market remained a touchy subject at the SFIG Vegas conference last week. MBS investors are encouraged that the bureau is more willing to listen to industry participants, but they have concerns about assignee liability and grim predictions about increased regulation by the states. For a time after the CFPB implemented the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule, sales of non-agency mortgages were difficult to complete. TRID includes assignee liability ...

Real estate investment trusts that specialize in residential mortgage credit continued to add to their MBS holdings during the fourth quarter of 2017, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking.

Rising interest rates can be a two-edged sword for MBS-investing real estate investment trusts: prepayment speeds will inevitably fall (the good), while new securities to buy could be in short supply thanks to lower originations in the primary market (the bad).

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reduced their combined mortgage portfolios to $484.2 billion during the fourth quarter of 2017, according to an Inside MBS & ABS analysis.

The Securities and Exchange Commission completed an enforcement action last week against Deutsche Bank Securities and a former head trader at the firm regarding sales of commercial MBS between 2011 and 2015.

Prices for jumbo mortgages softened near the end of 2017 and then markedly improved in the first two months of this year, according to officials at Redwood Trust. “As they often do, market conditions rebounded in January and we took full advantage,” Dashiell Robinson, an executive vice president at Redwood, said this week during the real estate investment trust’s earnings call. The company priced five non-agency mortgage-backed securities in January and February at much better execution ...

Commercial banks and savings institutions held a combined $1.844 trillion of single-family MBS in their investment portfolios at the end of 2017, a modest 0.3 percent increase from the previous period, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis.

The Department of Veterans Affairs will require lenders to provide early disclosures to veterans seeking to refinance into a VA Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan. The new policy aims to ensure that the VA streamline refi loan they sought would actually lower their monthly mortgage payments and is not just a scam for lenders to charge higher fees. Loan churning, or serial refinancing, is at the root of the VA policy change. Churning refers to multiple refinancing of an unseasoned mortgage loan within a very short time, often within six months of origination. Serial refinancing may add more payments and interest to the new loan, prolonging debt repayment, and can strip equity. It also potentially raises the risk of default by the borrower. In addition, the risk of prepayment could affect pricing of Ginnie Mae securities, which could cause lenders to charge higher rates on VA loans to make up for the ...