Ocwen Financial agreed to a consent order with the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions this week, which included a $900,000 fine. The consent order related to Ocwen’s use of offshore unlicensed affiliate companies to service mortgages on properties in Washington state. Going forward, Ocwen agreed to service Washington-based mortgages only through licensed entities and the state will not license foreign entities ... [Includes three briefs]

Major industry trade groups are asking FHA and VA to suspend proposed guidelines for energy-improvement loans and give stakeholders an opportunity to comment. In a joint letter, 11 trade groups warned that the proposed agency guidelines regarding Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loans raises serious concerns that must be resolved before implementation of any PACE guidance. Prior to the issuance of the new guidelines, both FHA and VA prohibited the financing or refinancing if there was a lien other than the FHA-insured or VA-guaranteed mortgages. PACE programs are available in 19 states but most are in California. They provide financing for home improvements and clean-energy upgrades that would result in more efficient use of water and electricity, and ultimately savings for homeowners. The PACE obligation is repaid through a property-tax assessment, which takes a ...

Commercial banks and savings institutions continued to load up on residential MBS during the second quarter of 2016, pushing their investment in the sector to a new high, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Banks and thrifts reported MBS holdings of $1.684 trillion as of the end of June, a 1.4 percent increase since the previous quarter. These are long-term holdings in banks’ held-to-maturity and available-for-sale portfolios. The industry held another $46.02 billion of MBS in their trading accounts. Not surprisingly, all of the gain came in agency MBS, particularly pass-through securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The industry’s aggregate holdings of these securities, $867.64 billion, were up 4.1 percent from the ...

Fitch Ratings released criteria for rating MBS backed by nonperforming loans late last week, saying it will cap ratings for such deals at “A” due to “the idiosyncratic and adverse-selection risk.” As mortgage performance has improved in recent years, issuance of MBS backed solely by nonperforming loans has been limited. However, Fitch said it considers a transaction as an NPL issuance if more than 10.0 percent of the collateral is 60+ days delinquent at the time of issuance. The rating service will require such MBS to meet a number of standards to receive a low investment-grade rating of “A” or “BBB,” including a sequential-pay structure and application of available funds to pay interest to the rated notes. “Absent these structural ...

With balances on non-agency MBS issued before the financial crisis falling to levels where clean-up calls can be initiated, clean-up call activity is rising with prospects for further growth. Rights to clean-up calls on non-agency MBS can typically be exercised when the outstanding balance of the MBS is lower than 10.0 percent of the original balance. The owner of the call rights (typically the master servicer) can purchase loans from the pool at par plus expenses and make a profit by selling or re-securitizing performing loans at a premium and retaining distressed loans to modify or liquidate. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, about 37 deals have been called this year totaling about $800 million in unpaid principal balance ...

A New York State Supreme Court judge recently signed off on JPMorgan’s proposed $4.5 billion settlement with a revised list of MBS trusts, while three other Wall Street banks lost in separate bids to have MBS claims against them dismissed. On Aug. 12, Justice Marcy Friedman of the New York State Supreme Court approved JPMorgan’s representation-and-warranties settlement offer for 319 MBS trusts. She concluded that the trustees exercised their discretionary power reasonably and in good faith in accepting the settlement. JPMorgan and a group of 20 large institutional investors that hold approximately 32.5 percent of the securities issued by the MBS trusts negotiated the settlement. Among these prominent investors were Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank ...

While private mortgage insurance on new non-agency mortgage originations has been minimal since 2008, some industry participants project that private MI will play a role in the non-agency mortgage-backed security market going forward. “Mortgage insurers may get more involved with the private-label market, and this may be another source of third-party oversight,” Morningstar Credit Ratings said in a recent report. “While it is too early to predict the investors’ response to ...

A ruling late last year by a state appeals court in New York threatens to upend the practice of providing “gap” or “bridge down” representations and warranties on residential MBS, according to a brief submitted on behalf of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. SIFMA asked the New York State Court of Appeals to reverse the lower court’s ruling in Bank of New York Mellon v. WMC Mortgage. Lawyers at the law firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan submitted an amicus brief to the N.Y. State Court of Appeals on behalf of SIFMA regarding the case. “The court’s resolution of this issue could have...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to whittle away at their retained mortgage portfolios during the second quarter, keeping up a focus on shedding less-liquid assets. The two government-sponsored enterprises held a combined $637.0 billion of mortgage loans and mortgage securities at June 30, down 17.6 percent from a year ago. Under the current terms of their conservatorship, Fannie and Freddie are required to reduce their mortgage portfolios by at least 15.0 percent a year. By the beginning of 2018, each GSE portfolio is expected...[Includes one data table]

Fannie Mae’s new securitization program for modified single-family mortgages could generate as much as $24 billion in issuance, according to an analysis by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The program will create “an asset class meriting investor focus,” BAML noted. Fannie recently released...