MFA Financial posted a sharp increase in income, driven by its focus on buying non-agency mortgages and its acquisition of Lima One, a business-purpose lender.

AG Mortgage Investment Trust more than doubled its net income in the third quarter as it shifted its focus to non-agency mortgages. AGMIT is sourcing many of its mortgage acquisitions from an affiliated lender.

Servicing of jumbo mortgages increased at most of the 30 top firms in the sector during the third quarter. However, top-ranked Wells Fargo bucked the trend. (Includes data chart.)

The public REIT portion of the Angel Oak Companies non-QM machine nearly tripled its income in the third quarter thanks to an increase in loan acquisitions and an MBS issuance.

The lender is increasing its originations of non-QMs, which helped it generate a profit for the third quarter. Still, non-QM pricing declined early in the fourth quarter and there are additional costs tied to originating the loans.

The largest non-agency MBS on offer in the past two weeks was a $762 million deal from United Wholesale Mortgage. Barclays Capital is also set to issue an expanded-credit MBS.

Number of non-agency mortgages in forbearance increases; Securent offering loan-defect insurance; Filo Mortgage launches jumbo offering; Lakeview Loan Servicing partners with Silver Hill Funding.

GSE loan limits could go up by 20% next year, reducing the share of loans that could be non-agency jumbos. Even with lenders offering higher GSE loan limits in advance, Redwood hasn’t seen much of an impact.

Non-agency MBS can generate returns in the mid-teens, according to some issuers. Also, a reduction of limitations placed on the GSEs isn’t expected to slow non-agency MBS issuance of GSE-eligible loans.

Originations of non-agency mortgages for residential investment properties increased by nearly 60% in the third quarter at Velocity. The lender also received a record amount of loan applications in October.