Ventana Home Mortgage recently launched mortgage conduit operations based in part on rights that were acquired from WinWater Home Mortgage. The lender said it is focusing on acquiring non-qualified mortgages from correspondent lenders, with plans for issuing non-agency mortgage-backed securities.Ventana is a subsidiary of Window Rock Capital Partners. Neat Capital recently launched its mortgage lending platform, with a focus on ... [Includes six briefs]

Production of new first-lien home mortgages fizzled in the first quarter of 2017 as the bottom fell out of the refinance market and home sales slumbered, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. An estimated $385.0 billion of new first-lien mortgages were originated in the first three months of the year, a 33.6 percent downturn from the fourth quarter of 2016. It likely did not mark the end of the world, however. For starters, the fourth quarter of last year surprised on the upside – at $580.0 billion, it was the second-highest quarterly volume in the previous four years. And the start of 2017 was...[Includes two data tables]

A total of $13.38 billion of non-agency MBS was issued during the first quarter of 2017, a sharp 67.1 percent jump from the final quarter of last year, a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking reveals. Although most of the major segments posted solid increases, the scratch-and-dent market was the star of the show. The $8.09 billion of these deals issued in the first three months of the new year represented 60.5 percent of total production and it more than doubled the fourth-quarter total. The top two issuers of non-agency MBS – Chimera Investment and Cerberus Capital – earned...[Includes three data tables]

Losses on rated non-agency MBS backed by re-performing loans have been minimal, according to DBRS. RPLs have been one of the dominant types of mortgages in post-crisis non-agency MBS. Issuance of MBS backed by RPLs increased significantly in 2015, according to DBRS. Some $13.4 billion of volume was issued that year, compared with a total of $5.9 billion of issuance between 2010 and 2014. The deals often don’t receive credit ratings, which can make them difficult to track. Some $15.3 billion of RPL MBS were issued...

After some tightening in the fourth quarter of 2016, issuers of prime non-agency mortgage-backed securities in the first quarter of 2017 largely returned to the underwriting standards typically seen in the sector, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Some $2.60 billion of prime non-agency MBS was issued during the quarter, spread across six deals, including a $1.03 billion issuance by JPMorgan Chase. Underwriting ... [Includes two data charts]

Deephaven Mortgage is preparing to issue a $221.14 million nonprime mortgage-backed security, according to a presale report from S&P Global Ratings. The majority of mortgages in the deal were originated by Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions, a firm that has issued nonprime MBS on its own. While loans from 43 lenders will be included in Deephaven Residential Mortgage Trust 2017-1, Angel Oak accounts for 59.6 percent of the contributions. The other correspondent ...

Issuance of mortgage-backed securities backed by newly originated nonprime mortgages increased in the first quarter of 2017, according to Inside Nonconforming Markets. An estimated $411.36 million in nonprime MBS was issued during the quarter, a 23.2 percent increase from the previous quarter. And no nonprime MBS was issued during the first quarter of 2016. Issuance in the first quarter of this year marked the second best quarter for volume since nonprime MBS activity ...

Flagstar Bancorp announced that it’s set to acquire certain assets of Opes Advisors, including the nonbank’s origination unit. Opes focuses on purchase mortgages on the west coast through the retail channel. Opes was the 39th-ranked jumbo lender in 2015, with $1.02 billion in jumbo originations, according to an Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis of data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Jumbos accounted for 40.6 percent ... [Includes three briefs]

As first quarters go, the start to 2017 was relatively strong, but total issuance was down sharply from the previous period, a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking reveals. The market produced a total of $394.08 billion of residential MBS and non-mortgage ABS during the first three months of 2017, an 18.5 percent decline from the fourth quarter of last year. Production, however, was up 23.7 percent from the same period a year ago, and it was the strongest start since the first quarter of 2013, when agency mortgage refinance activity was running white-hot. In 2017, the agency MBS sector is...[Includes three data tables]

Investors in Taiwan held $208.1 billion of agency MBS, non-agency MBS and ABS at the midway point of 2016, making it the largest overseas investor in the market, according to preliminary Treasury Department data. Taiwan increased its holdings of U.S. MBS and ABS by 9.6 percent from the midway point in 2015, a time period during which overall foreign investment was flat. Treasury releases annual estimates of U.S. MBS and ABS by individual foreign countries as of the middle of each year. The estimates include both government-related and private-sector investors domiciled in the country. Mainland China had been...[Includes one data table]