Lenders are likely to shift some of their business away from the government-sponsored enterprises and into the non-agency market in the coming years, regardless of GSE reform efforts, according to a report released this week by the Congressional Budget Office. “With house prices expected to trend upward, the balance sheets of lenders and investors should improve, as should borrowers’ financial positions,” the nonpartisan provider of analysis for Congress said. “Consequently, CBO projects that private companies will become more willing to make new loans and demand lower fees to compensate for the credit risks they take, which will reduce Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s pricing advantage over their private competitors.” If the private sector bears more mortgage credit risk, the CBO said...

As the share of investors purchasing homes declines, mortgage financing continues to take market share from cash financing for home purchases, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. Non-cash financing was used on 72.4 percent of home purchases in November, based on a three-month moving average. That’s up from a 70.7 percent share in November 2013 and a share as low as 66.9 percent in March 2012. Prior to the housing crisis, the non-cash share of total home sales averaged...

Structured Finance Industry Group staff and some investor members met recently with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Structured Finance to talk about the initial reaction that investors had to the final Regulation AB II rule. Among topics addressed were market trends, operational aspects and scope of applicability of the final rule, according to an update SFIG provided its members recently. Meanwhile, the SFIG is...

The City of San Francisco has delayed a proposed partnership with Richmond, CA, to use eminent-domain authority to forcibly acquire distressed mortgages out of non-agency securitization trusts, opting instead to study the impact of such an agreement as well as other alternatives to assist underwater homeowners. Opposition by the San Francisco City Controller and the mortgage banking industry has forced John Avalos, a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors, to scale back his partnership proposal. Avalos laid out...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency should not wait for Congressional reform and should instead move at a deliberate pace to implement a single government-sponsored enterprise MBS, according to the Structured Finance Industry Group. SFIG staff and several members met with FHFA officials this week to discuss the potential transition to a single, common security between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In August, the FHFA proposed...

Seven years after the financial crisis, market demand for non-agency residential MBS remains feeble, at best – mostly because of higher yields elsewhere, convexity risk concerns, bond liquidity and pricing and missing structural reforms, industry participants say. “Even with the modest amounts of RMBS issuance that we’re seeing, the market is still struggling to digest those securities. We saw that last year and in the beginning of this year. So the question is: what’s driving that lack of demand?” said Rui Pereira, managing director at Fitch Ratings, during a panel discussion at a residential MBS reform symposium sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network in New York City last month. In advance of the public discussion, Pereira queried...

One of the chief concerns among some top institutional investors in the non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities market is coming up with a way to price the risks of poorly underwritten or serviced mortgages more effectively. The objective is to price deals so the costs associated with an origination or servicing failure will be more appropriately assigned to those responsible for the defect. During a recent industry conference, a managing director at ...

Chimera Investment emerged from years of accounting issues with an ability to return to the new-issue jumbo mortgage-backed security market. However, the real estate investment trust has focused its new investment strategy on agency MBS as well as multifamily activity and a unique restructuring of vintage non-agency MBS. Matthew Lambiase, president and CEO of the real estate investment trust, said the returns offered by new jumbo MBS aren’t currently attractive. “The economics are ...

The FHA and Ginnie Mae will share in the record-setting $16.7 billion settlement between Bank of America, the Department of Justice and certain other federal agencies and six states to resolve claims related to mortgage fraud and toxic mortgage-backed securities. The FHA will receive approximately $800 million and an undisclosed amount for consumer relief from BofA. The bank was accused of falsely certifying poorly underwritten loans for FHA insurance, resulting in huge losses for the agency. It is unclear how much Ginnie Mae’s share would be from the settlement. “As a direct endorser of FHA-insured loans, Bank of America performs a critical role in home lending,” said U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch for the Eastern District of New York during the announcement of the global settlement in August. “In obtaining a payment of $800 million and sweeping relief for troubled homeowners, we have not ...

In the wake of the Federal Reserve’s announced end to its multi-part quantitative easing program, look for private investors to face a number of challenges when it comes to increasing their share of the MBS market, concluded a white paper by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The MBA paper, issued late last week, noted there is no single player waiting in the wings able to pick up the slack when the Fed relinquishes its role as the dominant purchaser of agency MBS. “Many of the potential private investors face...