Top mortgage finance professionals and government officials gathered in New York City last week to discuss the prospects for the non-agency MBS market, and their assessments were all over the board, a sign of the uncertainty many participants have about trying to resuscitate a stagnant sector. “It’s been seven years since the financial crisis, and certainly a lot of things have changed,” said Rui Pereira, managing director at Fitch Ratings, during a panel at the non-agency MBS reform symposium sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network. He then cited...

Home Partners of America, a single-family rental company affiliated with MBS veteran Lewis Ranieri, has been quietly gobbling up homes across the U.S., and may have its eye on tapping the securitization market. “They are very active,” said one associate close to Ranieri, who spoke under the condition his name not be used. Moreover, Home Partners – formerly known as Hyperion Homes LLC – recently received...

The benchmark non-agency mortgage-backed security that the Treasury Department is organizing will vary significantly from recent non-agency MBS. Michael Stegman, counselor on housing finance policy to the Treasury, revealed new details about the planned transaction last week in New York City at the Private-Label RMBS Symposium hosted by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network. Stegman said the benchmark non-agency MBS will ideally be ...

As leading figures in the secondary market continue their efforts to reboot the non-agency mortgage-backed securities sector, attracting private capital remains the single most critical factor in the equation. However, during a recent industry conference, institutional investors made it clear that in order for them to return, the market’s infrastructure will need to provide stronger protections, enhanced transparency and an improved ability to respond when a deal starts to go sour ...

The latest “green papers” in the Structured Finance Industry Group’s RMBS 3.0 standards-setting project focus on due-diligence disclosures for investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities. The SFIG noted that potential investors in non-agency MBS are particularly interested in findings conducted by third-party due-diligence firms before a security is issued. The SFIG proposed a model form that would disclose an “extract” of due-diligence findings to investors ...

FirstKey Mortgage, a jumbo conduit indirectly owned by funds managed by Cerberus Capital Management, is set to issue its first jumbo mortgage-backed security. FirstKey ramped up its jumbo activity in the past year and to this point has aggregated loans for inclusion in jumbo MBS from other issuers, including WinWater Home Mortgage, another relatively new jumbo MBS player. The $285.98 million FirstKey Mortgage Trust 2014-1 is set to receive AAA ratings ...

The subprime servicing business continued to decline during the third quarter of 2014, and the sector’s top player faces big challenges in trying to get any bigger. The supply of subprime mortgage servicing outstanding fell to an estimated $352 billion at the end of the third quarter, according to a new Inside Nonconforming Markets ranking. That was down 5.9 percent from the end of June and off 15.8 percent from a year ago. Ocwen Financial remained the top servicer ... [Includes one data chart]

The nonprime mortgages held by the government-sponsored enterprises continue to run off, though the GSEs have sold some of their holdings of nonprime mortgage-backed securities in the past year, according to industry analysts. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held a combined $238.83 billion in nonprime mortgages as of the end of the third quarter of 2014, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Purchased/guaranteed mortgages ... [Includes one data chart]

Bond investing giant PIMCO has made an investment in Citadel Servicing, a small but fast-growing nonprime lender that could wind up originating $400 million in non-agency residential loans next year. Industry officials confirmed the investment to Inside Nonconforming Markets, although neither company would comment. One source close to the transaction said PIMCO’s stake in Citadel is under 30 percent. The lender, which raised $200 million in seed money early last year, has been funding ...

The servicing transfer from Wells Fargo to Ocwen Financial that had been on hold for more than eight months was cancelled last week by the two firms. Scrutiny from the New York Department of Financial Services prompted Ocwen to place the transfer on hold in February. The transfer was first announced in January and would have involved servicing on non-agency mortgage-backed securities with an unpaid principal balance of $35.9 billion along with $3.3 billion in mortgages serviced for ...