Mortgage origination volume was down sharply in 2014, but not by as much as previously thought, according to an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data released this week by federal regulators. A total of $1.242 trillion of single-family purchase and refinance loans were originated during 2014, the HMDA data reveal. That was down 29.5 percent from the 2013 HMDA total, although purchase-mortgage lending was up slightly in both the government-insured and conventional markets. HMDA first-lien purchase and refi originations came...[Includes one data table]

The new non-agency security has credit enhancement of 49.9 percent on the top-rated tranche.

The evidence is somewhat suspect because as the analysts noted, the 43 percent cap on DTI ratios for QMs doesn’t currently apply to the FHA, VA or GSE mortgages.

The supply of home mortgage debt outstanding started growing again during the second quarter of 2015, thanks to relatively strong growth in retained portfolios, according to an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of new data from the Federal Reserve and other sources. The Fed reported late last week that $9.901 trillion of single-family mortgage debt was outstanding as of the end of June. That was up 0.4 percent from March and represented the biggest supply of mortgage servicing since the third quarter of 2013. The servicing market had been shrinking...[Includes two data tables]

Ocwen has so many workers in India that it hedges its risk against the currency there, the Rupee.

“It was a great channel for some time, but the competitive landscape is expanding rapidly,” said one executive at the company.

Among the industry-supported provisions is expanded small-creditor definition.

Most of Ocwen’s back-office workers are overseas in India and the Philippines where call center workers make much less than their U.S. counterparts.

Loan officers, it seems, are more willing to work on agency-eligible mortgages because they know the transactions have a good chance of closing, but non-QMs are a different matter.

Mortgage securitization rates in 2015 are still low compared to last year, but some of the decline is likely due to the lag between primary market origination and MBS issuance. For the first six months of the year, new MBS issuance represented 73.8 percent of total originations, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. That’s down from a 75.4 percent securitization rate for all of 2014. Securitization rates are...[Includes one data table]