The top correspondent sellers of jumbo mortgages vary in where they sell loans. About half of sales in 2018 were to banks, about a third went to nonbanks and the rest was delivered directly to non-agency MBS.

Activity in the non-agency MBS market is resuming after a slowdown in the second half of August. Presale reports for five deals have been published this month, led by prime non-agency MBS.

Refinances of jumbo mortgages increased significantly in the second quarter and accounted for 35.5% of total jumbo originations. Industry participants expect refi volume to remain elevated.

Jumbo originations increased across channels in the first half of 2019. The correspondent channel lost a little bit of market share while retail remained the dominant source of jumbo production.

Citi joined JPMorgan Chase as the second big bank to issue MBS backed by non-QMs. The deal was stocked with mortgages from Impac.

LendingHome in July issued its second fix-and-flip MBS of 2019. The deal was met with stronger demand than the security issued in March.

The real estate investment trust received a positive no-action letter from the SEC regarding mortgage servicing rights acquired as part of its mortgage banking activities.

The rating service made a couple of issuer-friendly tweaks to its MBS loss model criteria proposed in June. The rating service, for the first time, will con-sider catastrophic risk when assessing loans.