If investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities had easy access to the addresses of mortgages included in non-agency MBS, the sector’s market share would increase, according to a new proposal by the Reason Foundation, which promotes libertarian principles. “Ignorance of the borrower’s address and identity is a major disadvantage for the residential MBS investor or anyone trying to analyze residential MBS deals,” according to Marc Joffe, a research associate at the Reason Foundation and Anthony Randazzo ...

BDO Consulting wa selected this week to serve as the primary professional firm to help oversee the recent $25.0 billion servicing settlement. More than 30 BDO professionals will work with the settlement’s monitor to oversee the settlement. BDO is a professional services firm providing assurance, tax, financial advisory and consulting services. The company has worked with large retail mortgage lenders and financial institutions, and conducted related assessments and investigations ... [Includes four briefs]

In a move intended to maintain the integrity of data that helps guide the decisions of MBS investors, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority last week fined Citigroup Global Markets $3.5 million for allegedly providing “inaccurate mortgage performance information, supervisory failures and other violations” in connection with subprime residential MBS. “Citigroup posted data for its RMBS deals that it should have known was inaccurate; and even after they learned that the data was inaccurate, Citigroup did not correct the problem until years later,” said Brad Bennett, FINRA executive vice president and...

Improved subprime performance and a lack of new originations have prompted major nonbank firms involved in subprime servicing to expand their portfolios with acquisitions of nonperforming agency mortgages. Ocwen Financial, Nationstar Mortgage and Walter Investment Management, among others, have all recently acquired large volumes of nonperforming agency mortgages. An estimated $525.0 billion in subprime mortgages were outstanding as of the end of the first quarter of 2012, according to an Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis ... [Includes one data chart]

“There are a number of developments that are reflective of a more mature and fully functioning securitization market,” Brett Nicholas, president of Redwood Trust, said last week. Among other issues, he noted the recent jumbo mortgage-backed security issuance by a subsidiary of Credit Suisse Group. Nicholas’ remarks at the JMP Securities research conference last week were some of the first by Redwood officials regarding competition on jumbo MBS issuance. Until the $741.94 million issuance by Credit Suisse ...

Residential Capital’s bankruptcy filing last week was part of an effort to settle repurchase claims sought by non-agency mortgage-backed security investors. In conjunction with the bankruptcy, 17 institutional investors agreed to an $8.7 billion claim that will need approval by the court and is unsecured, suggesting that the final settlement payout could be much lower. ResCap is a subsidiary of Ally Financial. Michael Carpenter, CEO of Ally, said the bankruptcy gives Ally further distance from “very large” rep and warrant claims ...

While non-agency mortgage-backed security investors did not file a formal challenge to the $25.0 billion servicing settlement, they remain concerned with the implementation of principal forgiveness loan modifications. The latest qualms were raised last week in a letter to Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, from Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-OH, and Bob Corker, R-TN. “Because any settlement could dramatically affect [pension funds and retirement funds], their managers should ...

The still-developing market for real estate-owned property rentals is starting to get crowded. A number of firms have formed in recent weeks hoping to benefit from low prices on REO properties. Homebuilder Beazer Homes announced this month that it formed a private real estate investment trust to acquire, refurbish and lease single-family homes on a large scale in select markets. Beazer Pre-Owned Rental Homes was arranged by affiliates of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and has approximately $85 million in funding ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have made significant progress in recovering from the losses on the nonprime mortgages they purchased and guaranteed before 2009. In the first quarter of 2012, both of the government-sponsored enterprises touted that mortgages acquired in and after 2009 now account for the majority of their single-family holdings. The GSEs held a combined $386.01 billion in nonprime purchased/guaranteed mortgages as well as nonprime mortgage-backed securities at the end of the first quarter of 2012 ... [Includes one data chart]

Although mortgage delinquency rates have improved in recent quarters, industry participants say there are still plenty of opportunities to buy and sell distressed mortgages. Some $400 billion in nonperforming residential mortgages remain on U.S. banks’ balance sheets, according to estimates by officials at PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust. “I don’t think we’ve come near working through this,” said Kevin Lahr, director of valuation services at Digital Risk. “We’re halfway through this, maybe.” Speaking at ...