Freddie Mac’s efforts to reduce holdings of nonprime mortgages and nonprime mortgage-backed securities are proceeding at a faster pace than efforts at Fannie Mae, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. The government-sponsored enterprises had a combined $161.12 billion in nonprime holdings as of the end of the second quarter of 2016, down 6.3 percent from the first quarter and down 20.4 percent from the second ... [Includes one data chart]

There’s more than $50.0 billion in capital ready to acquire new nonprime home loans, including non-qualified mortgages, according to Dan Perl, chairman and CEO of Citadel Servicing, a nonprime lender. “Liquidity is abundant,” he said last week at the California Mortgage Bankers Association’s Western Secondary Market Conference in San Francisco. “There is a ready market for this and I couldn’t say that two years ago.” William Pendleton, a senior vice president of portfolio lending at Caliber Home Loans, said...

Nonbank jumbo originators may soon find themselves at a pricing disadvantage to depositories thanks to recent events beyond their control: two jumbo conduits calling it quits and updated regulatory language that offers no comfort when it comes to curing “TRID” errors. Industry veteran Bill Dallas, who runs nonbank lender Skyline Home Loans, Calabasas, CA, put it bluntly, saying: “Banks appear to be the big jumbo winners – Union Bank and others.” He said jumbo production is a low-margin business but a necessity in California. The CEO noted...

Two Harbors Investment and Five Oaks Investment separately announced plans to end their jumbo mortgage conduit operations due to profitability issues. “We believe that current and expected mortgage market conditions and competitive pressures will prevent us from growing this business to a scale that meets our long-term goals and financial expectations,” said Thomas Siering, Two Harbors’ president and CEO. The Two Harbors announcement came...

The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court decision that had cleared Freddie Mac of charges that it misled investors about its involvement in the subprime mortgage market. The lawsuit was filed in 2008 by the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, which claimed Freddie made false public financial statements that hid its exposure to risky loans. The fund alleged that it lost more than $27.2 million as the value of Freddie stock plummeted. OPERS said...

Marketplace lender Social Finance is preparing to issue a $480.55 million ABS backed by unsecured consumer loans, its second such deal to date. So far, 10 of its 12 securitizations have used student loans as collateral. According to a report by DBRS, SCLP 2016-2 consists of $425.88 million of class A notes and $54.67 million of B notes. The package is expected to price early next week, but at press time no information was available regarding the coupons. The class A notes received...

Two Harbors Investment announced this week that it will discontinue its mortgage conduit and securitization operations. The real estate investment trust was the top issuer of jumbo mortgage-backed securities in the first half of 2016, with $628.8 million in volume, according to Inside Nonconforming Markets. Five Oaks Investment also announced that it will stop jumbo conduit activities on Aug. 1. Hatteras Financial, a third jumbo conduit related to a REIT, recently pulled ...

Pricing for new jumbo mortgage-backed securities has improved recently, prompting Redwood Trust to issue a new transaction relatively quickly. Redwood issued its first jumbo MBS of the year, a $344.89 million deal, in early June. While the company issued an average of one jumbo MBS per month in 2013, the real estate investment trust has largely shifted to whole-loan sales of jumbos in recent years due to better pricing for such transactions. At an investor conference ...

The second large prime non-agency mortgage-backed security from JPMorgan Chase will differ somewhat from the pioneering deal the bank priced in March. Among other changes, the Chase Mortgage Trust 2016-2 is larger than the previous MBS and includes a higher share of jumbos, according to presale reports. The MBS issued late this week totaled $2.65 billion, with mortgages eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises accounting for 55.0 percent of ...

Originations of non-agency nonprime mortgages have been limited in the years since the financial crisis, with many borrowers with low credit scores receiving FHA loans instead. Officials at a number of nonprime lenders have noted that loan originator compensation requirements have limited incentives for loan officers to work on nonprime mortgages. A loan originator might be able to complete two FHA mortgages in the time it takes to close one nonprime mortgage, and there’s always a ...