For years, big banks have delivered nearly all of their conforming mortgage production to the government-sponsored enterprises and retained their jumbo mortgages in portfolio. But some big banks have changed tactics, exploring differing execution options for their originations. Paul Donofrio, CFO of Bank of America, said the bank retained about 90.0 percent of its mortgage production on balance sheet in the second quarter of 2017. BofA had $18.0 billion in originations during the quarter, including first mortgages and home-equity loans. The loans retained...

As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau prepares to begin assessing its ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rule, national representatives of the mortgage industry and other financial services participants this week urged the regulator to deal with what’s known as the “GSE patch.” The patch provides a temporary safe harbor for mortgages eligible to be sold to the government-sponsored enterprises that have debt-to-income ratios that exceed 43 percent, the maximum allowed under the ATR rule. The Housing Policy Council of the Financial Services Roundtable noted...

Best Odds of Success in Making Consumer Complaint Data Confidential Rest With a New Director at the CFPB. Industry observers and lobbyists are increasingly of the view that the most likely way the industry will see the kind of substantive regulatory reform and relief it needs is not through federal legislation, but rather from a new director at the CFPB... ICYMI: The Financial CHOICE Act Would Exclude AMCs from Points and Fees Calculations. One overlooked provision in H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives on June 13, deals with residential mortgage appraisals...

Flagstar Bank priced its first post-crisis jumbo MBS this week and other big banks could start issuing deals this year, according to industry analysts. Since 2010, the main issuers in the fledgling jumbo MBS market have been nonbanks, with banks content to hold jumbos in portfolio. In recent years, the only bank to issue prime non-agency MBS has been JPMorgan Chase, which has packaged jumbos with some mortgages eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises in its deals. The $443.8 million Flagstar Mortgage Trust 2017-1 follows...

Pacific Investment Management Company published an opinion piece this week calling for changes in the non-agency market before policymakers enact reforms that affect the government-sponsored enterprises. PIMCO was also critical of other GSE reform proposals. “Without a functioning private mortgage market, it will be nearly impossible for the GSEs to shrink their footprint without significant disruption to the housing market and to the underlying homeownership rate,” PIMCO said. PIMCO was...

A few months back, Citadel Servicing Corp., Irvine, CA, was eyeing the May/June period as the target date for its first nonprime mortgage-backed security. Now that July is almost over, it’s eyeing the fall – if that. According to company founder and CEO Dan Perl, prices being paid in the whole loan market for its high-yielding loans are just too good to turn down. Perl indicated that for his company, at least, the economics of a whole loan transaction are just too favorable right now. Although he could not be too specific on pricing, the industry veteran indicated...

The jumbo mortgage-backed security market is set for a significant boost as Flagstar Bank will issue MBS. Since 2015, only one bank has issued jumbo MBS: JPMorgan Chase. Other issuers have all been nonbanks as banks have largely opted to retain jumbos in portfolio instead of issue non-agency MBS.Some details about the planned Flagstar Mortgage Trust 2017-1 were revealed this week in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ...

John Shrewsberry, CFO of Wells Fargo, told the bank’s investors last week that Wells is taking some steps to boost mortgage originations, including an emphasis on interest-only loans. “We are making some modest changes to generate new loan originations, including offering interest-only jumbo mortgage loans to high quality borrowers ...,” Shrewsberry said during Wells’ earnings call. However, when asked for further details, Tom Goyda, a spokesperson for Wells, downplayed ...

Only fixed-rate mortgages were included in prime non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued in the second quarter of 2017, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. It was the third quarterly interval since the first quarter of 2016 that adjustable-rate mortgages and loans with interest-only features were excluded from prime/jumbo MBS. And in the first quarter of 2017, ARMs accounted for less than 1.0 percent of total prime non-agency ... [Includes two data charts]

Loans from more than 100 lenders are in the latest jumbo mortgage-backed security from Redwood Trust but most of the lenders contributed such a small volume of loans to the issuance that they weren’t identified by rating services. Only two lenders have consistently provided more than 5.0 percent of the dollar volume in jumbo MBS Redwood has issued this year: First Republic Bank and Quicken Loans. Loans from First Republic account for 19.6 percent of the $485.25 million ...