Roughly two years ago, a Canadian pension fund bought into SitusAMC. Now, rumors are circulating the entire firm might be up for grabs.

The SFA has developed a framework due diligence providers can use to help address uncertainty prompted by new qualified-mortgage standards.

Non-agency MBS hit the market ahead of Thanksgiving; rating upgrades possible with new commercial MBS methodology at Moody’s; timeshare securitization performance stable; Fitch extends comment period for proposed criteria to rate shipping container ABS; California launches tobacco-settlement securitization.

Nearly $4.0 billion of non-agency MBS with mortgages for investment properties was on offer in the past two weeks. Many of the deals are backed by GSE-eligible mortgages.

Ocwen, which had plans to ramp up its clean-up calls of non-agency MBS, put the activity on hold following a pricing issue with Deutsche Bank, a trustee for the MBS.

S&P recently downgraded its view of home prices at the national level to overvalued from undervalued. How rating services view home prices plays a role in credit enhancement levels for non-agency MBS.

To meet the securitization needs of a robust mortgage market, SitusAMC has staffed up big time. But is it done adding heads?

No one’s shouting “fire” in a crowded non-QM movie house yet, but there are scattered concerns whole-loan pricing may have gotten ahead of itself. Something to keep an eye on?

Congress is getting closer to passing legislation that would help legacy MBS and ABS transition away from LIBOR; there’s a securitization angle in Zillow’s move to discontinue its fix-and-flip business.

Moody’s is considering increasing credit enhancement requirements and capping ratings for mortgage warehouse lending securitizations that allow for “wet” loans.