The supply of home mortgage debt outstanding increased by 0.5 percent during the third quarter of 2015, following a similar modest gain during the previous period. A total of $9.952 trillion of single-family mortgage debt was outstanding at the end of September, according to a Federal Reserve report released late last week. It represented a second consecutive quarterly increase, something the mortgage servicing market has struggled to accomplish during the long contraction that started back in 2008. Most of the increase came...[Includes one data table]

Subservicing shops increased their portfolios to $1.50 trillion during the third quarter, a 6.4 percent sequential gain, as mortgage originators continued to rely on such specialty vendors, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. Compared to a year ago, subservicing volume was up an impressive 28.2 percent. At Sept. 30, roughly 15.8 percent of all outstanding residential mortgages were being processed...[Includes one data table]

Lenders generated $25.0 billion in home-equity loans during the third quarter of 2015, according to Inside Mortgage Finance estimates, a modest 4.2 percent increase at a time when first-lien originations were fading. Home-equity lending – including open-ended lines of credit and closed-end second liens – hit its highest volume since the second quarter of 2008. Crashing home prices and extremely cautious underwriting have drastically reduced new home-equity lending. There is...[Includes three data tables]

Mortgage securitization rates have been moving higher in 2015 as ongoing new issuance catches up with this year’s surge in primary market originations. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis reveals that 69.2 percent of the loans originated through the first nine months of 2015 have been pooled in residential MBS, up from the 67.8 percent securitization rate for all of last year. The mortgage securitization rate had dropped...[Includes one data table]

The securitization of non-agency, nonprime residential loans appears to be heating up as 2015 draws to a close, but bond sizes continue to be – expectedly – quite small. Then again, that’s not the point of these deals, lending executives and investment bankers involved in the market, argue. The idea is to set the table by issuing securities backed by loans that fail to meet the qualified-mortgage test in the hope that, down the road, bond sizes will increase. Earlier this month, according to a report by Bloomberg, Lone Star Funds issued...

Originating nonprime mortgages can be done without repeating the mistakes that contributed to the financial crisis, according to officials at Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions. The firm, one of the most prominent lenders in a severely constrained market, launched in early 2014 and offers nonprime mortgages via wholesale and correspondent channels. Tom Hutchens, a senior vice president of sales and marketing at Angel Oak, said the lender is comfortable extending ...

The first jumbo mortgage-backed security from a subsidiary of Hatteras Financial received relatively strong reviews from rating services. The $231.18 million Onslow Bay Mortgage Loan Trust 2015-1 received AAA ratings with credit enhancement of 8.55 percent on the senior tranche. DBRS and Standard & Poor’s said that while they find Onslow Bay to be an acceptable aggregator, they increased the required credit enhancement on the MBS somewhat due to Hatteras’ lack of experience ...

Less than 1.0 percent of the dollar volume of jumbo mortgages originated in 2014 would have been eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises based on higher GSE loan limits that are set to take effect next year in nine metro markets, according to an Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis of data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The Federal Housing Finance Agency recently announced that high-cost loan limits will increase in 39 counties next year, with limits ...

The volume of home-equity loans held in portfolio at banks and thrifts declined in the third quarter of 2015, according to a new ranking from the Inside Mortgage Finance Bank Mortgage Database.Banks and thrifts held a total of $952.10 million in home-equity lines of credit, HELOC commitments and closed-end second liens at the end of the third quarter, down 1.1 percent compared with the previous quarter. Wells Fargo remained the top bank ... [Includes one data chart]

Approximately $191.8 billion in FHA-insured mortgage loans were securitized during the first nine months of 2015, surpassing the $158.1 billion of FHA loans that were placed in Ginnie Mae pools last year, agency loan-level data show. Securitized FHA purchase loans accounted for $111.7 billion of Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities issued over the same period. FHA refinance securitization totaled $66.8 billion. Modified FHA loans were also included in Ginnie MBS totals. The FHA loans in Ginnie MBS had an average loan-to-value ratio of 92.9 percent and an average FICO score of 677.5 percent, reflecting the single-family program’s traditional borrower base. The loans had an average debt-to-income ratio of 39.8 percent. FHA loans accounted for 19.8 percent of loans that underlie Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae MBS. On the other hand, the same loans accounted for 41.2 percent of insured loans in ... [ 1 chart ]