An affiliate of Galton Funding is preparing to issue a jumbo mortgage-backed security with looser underwriting standards than the super-prime deals that have dominated the jumbo market since the financial crisis. DBRS and Moody’s Investors Service assigned AAA ratings to the planned $254.55 million Galton Funding Mortgage Trust 2017-1. The senior tranche of the MBS will include credit enhancement of 13.50 percent, which is much higher than the 5.00 percent credit enhancement ...

Most major jumbo servicers increased their portfolios in 2016, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. A group of 30 servicers handled an estimated $921.10 billion in jumbo mortgages as of the end of the year, up 8.7 percent from the end of 2015. Wells Fargo was the top jumbo servicer, with a $279.97 billion portfolio at yearend. While Wells steadily built up its jumbo servicing throughout the year, it lost some ... [Includes one data chart]

Documents have been drawn up to define a deal agent’s responsibilities, a number of firms are willing to be deal agents for new non-agency mortgage-backed securities and some investors insist that the investor-friendly role is necessary. But a deal agent has yet to be included in an MBS. Dmitri Rabin, a vice president of Loomis, Sayles & Company, an investing firm that has pushed the deal-agent concept, conceded that the function doesn’t provide much value in the current environment ...

The two issuers that recently entered the non-agency mortgage-backed security market included loans originated by lenders that haven’t been significant contributors to nonprime MBS or jumbo MBS. The $145.02 million nonprime MBS from Invictus Capital Partners included mortgages from 21 lenders, led by Calculated Risk Analytics with a 26.1 percent share of the dollar volume of loans in the deal. Calculated Risk Analytics does business as Excelerate Capital, a wholesale lender ...

The total unpaid principal balance of subprime mortgages outstanding continued its slow decline in 2016, ending the year at an estimated $255.0 billion, according to Inside Nonconforming Markets. Subprime performance was mixed in the fourth quarter, with the share of loans past due increasing compared with the previous quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Some 14.28 percent of mortgages were past due as of the end of the ... [Includes one data chart]

Limitations spanning more than three years on Ocwen Financial’s ability to acquire servicing could be ending soon. Company officials stress that a resumption of servicing acquisitions will help Ocwen see some benefits from economies of scale. In the three years since the New York Department of Financial Services started preventing Ocwen from acquiring servicing, Ocwen’s portfolio has declined by more than 50.0 percent, hitting an unpaid principal balance of $209.09 billion ...

Potential mortgage borrowers with bad credit or no credit should proceed with caution if they have been offered a subprime mortgage, according to advice from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB published a blog post this week focusing on the homebuying process for people with “poor” credit scores. The post, part of a series on home purchase advice, was authored by Megan Thibos, a policy analyst with the CFPB’s mortgage markets team. The post suggested that ...

The $356.40 million jumbo mortgage-backed security JPMorgan Chase issued in February 2014 has performed well, according to Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Since issuance, the rating service said JPMorgan Mortgage Trust 2014-1 has experienced minimal delinquencies, no credit-based loan modifications and no losses. As of the end of January, the MBS had an unpaid principal balance of $202.30 million and one mortgage in the deal was 30 days ... [Includes two briefs]

The bank statement loans and TRID exceptions prompted Fitch to apply higher loss severities to the MBS, which play a role in credit enhancement levels…

SFIG Executive Director Richard Johns suggested that instead of removing requirements for risk-retention, policymakers could provide capital relief for issuers that retain risk on their securities, rewarding “good behavior.”