Fannie Mae’s last Connecticut Avenue Securities credit-risk transfer transaction of the year featured its first use of a structure geared toward attracting more investors. CAS Series 2018-R07, a $922 million offering, is Fannie’s first risk-transfer deal involving a real estate mortgage investment conduit (REMIC). Both Fannie and Freddie see REMICs as a key to unlocking greater participation by real estate investment trusts and offshore investors. Freddie issued its first CRT using a REMIC ...

Goldman Sachs has forgiven a total of $78.7 million in principal on 746 first-lien mortgages since Aug. 1, 2018, as it neared fulfillment of a $1.8 billion consumer-relief obligation under two mortgage-related settlement agreements, according to independent monitor Eric Green.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac transferred risk on about $367 billion of unpaid principal balance in the first half of the year as the GSEs target a larger share of single-family loans. The Federal Housing Finance Agency published a credit-risk transfer progress report last week highlighting activity through the second quarter of 2018. This report marks the first time the FHFA is reporting the percentage of the GSEs’ targeted single-family and multifamily acquisitions that are covered by credit-risk transfer ...

A proposal issued by federal regulators last week to ease certain standards for capital and liquidity will likely prompt banks to reduce their holdings of MBS, according to industry analysts. The complex proposal could prompt a $65.0 billion reduction in bank holdings of MBS, according to estimates by the Federal Reserve and Wells Fargo Securities.

The Structured Finance Industry Group continues to wrestle with the demons of the past, the myriad issues that contributed to the downfall of the MBS and ABS markets a decade ago. Individuals working on various workstreams offered progress reports, stressing that the project is focused on best practices rather than rigid standards, at the group’s Residential Mortgage Finance Symposium in New York this week.

One large fixed income investor is working with clients now to make sure they’re prepared to invest in the new single security when it rolls out next summer. Western Asset Management is advising investors to consider aggregating their mortgage concentration and exposure limits for the uniform MBS that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will issue in the to-be-announced market.

An affiliate of Verus Mortgage Capital revised the structure of a planned non-agency mortgage-backed security, opting for a more traditional approach after initially planning to test a unique variation. The planned closing date for the $442.3 million issuance was also pushed back. When presale reports for Verus Securitization Trust 2018-3 were published in mid-October, the deal was structured with an initial pro rata structure that would shift to a sequential structure. The MBS ...

Ginnie Mae officials would welcome a return of commercial banks to the program, but they are not planning on it. Instead, the agency is looking the other way: at expanding financing options for nonbank portfolios of mortgage servicing rights. The current version of Ginnie’s acknowledgement agreement has been successful, enabling nonbank servicers to arrange MSR financing for virtually their entire portfolios, said Michael Drayne, a senior vice president at Ginnie, during the Residential Mortgage Finance Symposium sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group this week in New York. Although a number of banks are financing nonbank servicing portfolios, many are still not participating, he said. Karen Gelernt, a partner at Alston & Bird, noted that many banks continue to have anxiety about what will happen if a servicer defaults on its Ginnie requirements. Speaking as moderator on a panel with ...

Although prepayment speeds on Ginnie Mae MBS are now at the lowest level since 2014, agency Executive Vice President Maren Kasper expressed persistent concerns about the matter in remarks at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association this week.

Top-notch ratings assigned by three firms to a non-agency mortgage-backed security from Galton Funding prompted criticism from Fitch Ratings, which didn’t rate the issuance. The planned $452.7 million Galton Funding Mortgage Trust 2018-2 diverges from traditional non-agency MBS in its treatment of unpaid interest from delinquent mortgages. Fitch suggested that the change to the deal structure was so significant that it wouldn’t rate the transaction. Fitch noted that losses from unpaid ...