Starwood Property Trust plans to be a regular issuer of mortgage-backed securities backed by non-qualified mortgages after successfully closing its first deal this week. Loans in the $374.1 million issuance were sourced from Impac Mortgage Holdings, which is working to increase non-QM production, delivering the loans to Starwood and potentially other outlets. Jeffrey DiModica, president of Starwood Property Trust, said the real estate investment trust expects to be a “frequent issuer” ...

Ellington Financial could issue its second mortgage-backed security backed by non-qualified mortgages before yearend, according to officials at the nonbank. “We are nearing critical mass of product for a follow-on securitization and plan for that later this year, subject, of course, to market conditions,” said Laurence Penn, Ellington’s CEO and president. At the end of the June, Ellington held $150.2 million of non-QMs. Mark Tecotzky, co-CIO at Ellington, noted that the firm is increasing ...

Two lenders recently launched proprietary reverse-mortgage products. Quicken Loans’ One Reverse Mortgage unit is offering Home Equity Loan Optimizer. “With HELO, many high-value homes, condominiums, and solar-panel homes may qualify for a reverse mortgage,” One Reverse said. “Along with that, there is no mortgage insurance premium required and the amount clients may receive in proceeds is up to $4.0 million.” Longbridge Financial launched its Platinum ... [Includes two briefs]

The Mortgage Bankers Association called upon Congress to pass legislation to restore Ginnie Mae eligibility for so-called orphaned VA loans, which have caused a temporary disruption in the government-backed secondary market. In written testimony to the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs last week, the MBA urged lawmakers to make technical corrections to restore the eligibility of certain Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans for pooling. The MBA estimated the VA orphan loan mess at roughly $500 million. Due to new loan seasoning requirements in the recently enacted Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, sime IRRRLs were rendered ineligible for Ginnie MBS pools. The loans were in transit when legislation addressing the problem of VA loan churning and serial refinancing became law in May. The new law’s seasoning provisions turned out to be ...

Securitization of newly-originated expanded-credit mortgages declined slightly in the second quarter despite a strong showing in the nonprime sector. [Includes one data chart.]

The majority of loans in expanded-credit mortgage-backed securities are adjustable-rate mortgages, while such loans are few and far between in prime non-agency MBS, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. [Includes one data chart.]

More competition is coming into the nascent business of aggregating non-qualified mortgages and issuing mortgage-backed securities drawn by the market’s potential for profitable growth.

Three issuers of prime non-agency MBS have bucked industry standards and closed deals where some of the loans weren’t subject to pre-securitization reviews by third-party due diligence firms. The trend could cause problems for MBS investors, Moody’s Investors Service warned this week.

A handful of banks account for a large share of the loans in prime non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued since the start of 2017, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Banks were four of the top five originators of securitized prime mortgages between January 2017 and June 2018. More precisely, these banks ranked among the top known sources of collateral for these deals. In fact, the name of the originator was ... [Includes two data charts]

In a potentially significant shift, Wells Fargo has set aside $507.0 million in mortgages for inclusion in a non-agency mortgage-backed security. Wells is the top jumbo lender and some industry analysts suggest that the jumbo MBS market won’t rebound until banks like Wells stop retaining production in portfolio. Wells said loans designated as held-for-sale for a future MBS are nonconforming mortgages that would have otherwise been stored in its portfolio. Although no other details about ...