Lee Smith, an executive vice president and COO at Flagstar, said the bank’s jumbo originations were bolstered by the acquisition of Opes Advisors…

Choice mortgages carry rates that are roughly 100 basis points to 125 basis points higher than rates on Redwood’s super-prime program, known as Select.

Industry analysts expect that issuance of non-agency MBS in 2017 will outpace the volume seen last year. But 10 years after the start of the financial crisis, the non-agency MBS market is nowhere close to its level before the crisis, and a full recovery doesn’t look imminent. Some $28.8 billion of non-agency MBS was issued in the first half of 2017, up 32.0 percent from the same period last year, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database. Non-agency MBS issuance peaked in 2006 at $1.19 trillion. Some 71.8 percent of the issuance that year was backed by subprime mortgages and Alt A loans. Post-crisis non-agency MBS issuance has been dominated...

Two high-profile real estate investment trusts – Annaly Capital Management and New Residential Investment Corp. – appear to be refining their investment strategies these days, heading in different directions in terms of what asset classes they prefer. New Residential is continuing to make huge bets on mortgage servicing rights. According to its just-released earnings statement, the investor is showing no reluctance whatsoever when it comes to size. A new tally from Inside Mortgage Finance shows that New Residential ended the second quarter with $353.0 billion of “full servicing” rights in its possession, up 40.1 percent from March 31. A year ago, the REIT wasn’t...

A handful of banks that provide an early look at jumbo origination activity boosted volume in the second quarter of 2017, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. First Republic Bank funded $3.05 billion in single-family originations in the second quarter, up 21.0 percent from the previous period and a 4.1 percent increase from the second quarter of last year. Jumbos account for a large majority of the bank’s total production. “Overall, loan demand is strong, though ...

The first post-crisis prime non-agency mortgage-backed security from Flagstar Bank looks a lot like other deals issued in recent years, including exceptionally strong underwriting standards. However, the bank did break from the pack slightly with a few features in the new issuance. The $443.79 million Flagstar Mortgage Trust 2017-1 received AAA ratings with credit enhancement of 6.25 percent on the senior tranche. The deal was predominantly backed by non-agency jumbos, but ...

Redwood Trust is acquiring enough “expanded-prime” mortgages to put together a non-agency securitization, according to officials at the real estate investment trust. Redwood announced this week that it plans to issue a mortgage-backed security collateralized by loans from its “Choice” program as soon as September. The Choice program allows for somewhat looser underwriting standards than what’s typically seen in the jumbo MBS market, such as slightly higher debt-to-income ratios or ...

Participants in the post-crisis nonprime mortgage-backed securities market have resisted efforts to brand their deals as “subprime” and for good reason: the loans backing these transactions more closely resemble pre-crisis Alt A mortgages. In fact, some of the underwriting characteristics on new nonprime loans are even stronger than the credit quality on pre-crisis Alt A mortgages, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Between ... [Includes one data chart]

Impac Mortgage Holdings has continued to increase its production of non-qualified mortgages and plans to issue a $400.0 million mortgage-backed security collateralized by such loans, according to officials at the nonbank. Impac originated $289.60 million of non-QMs in 2016. In the first half of 2017, the nonbank had $416.70 million in non-QM volume. “We’ve seen a decrease in the conforming market and now month-over-month, we’re seeing an increase in the non-QM market ...

Investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities continue to grapple with a decision by a trustee to withhold millions of dollars from investors in vintage deals. Industry analysts suggest that post-crisis non-agency MBS include protections against such withholding. At the end of June, Wells Fargo withheld $94.3 million in funds from investors in 20 non-agency MBS that were subject to clean-up calls by New Residential Investment. The deals in question are the subject of a lawsuit ...