A VA mortgage servicer must immediately schedule an inspection and protect a property securing a VA loan if the property has been left vacant or abandoned by its owners. According to new guidelines issued by the VA, loan servicers must conduct an inspection immediately after becoming aware that the property’s physical condition may be in jeopardy. If local codes require more extensive protection than what VA requires, servicers should adhere to local requirements, the agency said. Failure to protect and preserve the collateral may result in a reduced guaranty claim if the servicer’s failure increased the VA’s liability on the loan. Unless the loan is undergoing loss mitigation, a property inspection is also required before the 60th day of delinquency or before starting foreclosure, whichever is earlier, the VA said. In addition, a property inspection will be required at least once a month after ...

The much-anticipated $150 million nonprime MBS deal from Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions appears to have hit a brick wall with concerns arising over representations and warranties on the transaction, according to one high-level source who claims to have knowledge of the deal. Both Angel Oak and the underwriter, Nomura Securities, this week once again did not return several media inquiries on what might have gone wrong. Originally, the bond – a privately issued transaction – was slated for sale to investors sometime in September but never came off. The source, who spoke to Inside MBS & ABS under the condition his name not be used, said...

The volume of jumbo mortgage-backed securities issued in the third quarter of 2015 fell 17.7 percent compared with the previous quarter, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. It was the second consecutive quarterly decline for jumbo MBS issuance after production hit $4.60 billion in the first three months of the year. Five issuers combined to issue $2.56 billion in jumbo MBS in the third quarter. Two of them increased ... [Includes one data chart]

Moves by two players in the jumbo market demonstrate that competition for originations of jumbo mortgages remains strong. Officials at Titan Capital Solutions have confirmed that the firm will cease its correspondent funding operation for jumbos. “We made the decision as the space was becoming really crowded and those entering the space have much bigger, deeper pockets than Titan,” said Ruth Lee, the lender’s executive vice president. “It was a great channel ...

The inclusion of a deal agent or transaction manager in new non-agency mortgage-backed securities would significantly increase investors’ confidence in the sector, according to industry participants. Alessandro Pagani, a portfolio manager and head of securitized assets at Loomis Sayles, said a large number of institutional investors have pushed for a deal agent and the hope is that if non-agency MBS includes the feature, investors will buy into the deals ...

A quirk in the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau drafted standards for qualified mortgages has put non-agency lenders at a disadvantage, according to a former CFPB official that was heavily involved in drafting the ability-to-repay rule. At the recent ABS East conference, Peter Carroll, an executive vice president at Quicken Loans, reiterated calls for the CFPB to make adjustments to Appendix Q of the ATR rule. Appendix Q details documentation requirements ...

Sales of higher-priced mortgages – a proxy for nonprime loans – increased in 2014 compared with the previous year, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets of data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Some $52.28 billion in higher-priced mortgages were sold in 2014, up 48.6 percent from the previous year. Sales to Ginnie Mae accounted for a large portion of the increase along with sales to other purchasers, including ... [Includes one data chart]

The planned $150 million non-agency mortgage-backed security from Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions and Nomura Securities might have been delayed due to issues involving representations and warranties, according to people familiar with the deal. The MBS was to be backed by nonprime non-qualified-mortgages and might be scrapped. Hudson City Savings Bank was hit with a consent order last week from the Consumer Financial Protection ... [Includes eight briefs]

Riding a wave of heavy purchase-mortgage activity, Ginnie Mae issuers produced a record $128.23 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending ranking and analysis. The third-quarter figure, which includes FHA home-equity conversion mortgage MBS, was up 6.5 percent from the second quarter of this year. The previous record was $125.68 billion, set back in the third quarter of 2009. Loan-level MBS data, which do not include HECMs and have truncated loan amounts, show hefty gains in purchase-mortgage activity that more than offset sharp declines in refinance business. The flow of FHA purchase mortgages jumped 37.7 percent from the second to the third quarter, and VA purchase mortgages were up 37.9 percent over the same period. Meanwhile, refinance volume fell ... [ 2 charts ]

Loan origination data for 2014 that were released last week by federal regulators show that the conventional mortgage market was considerably bigger than previously estimated – and that production levels this year are rising. Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data show that lenders covered by the law’s reporting requirements originated $969 billion of conventional purchase and refinance loans last year. About $232 billion of that amount came in loans exceeding the county-level conforming loan limits in effect for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year. The remainder, $737 billion, represents...[Includes two data tables]