The forlorn home-equity lending market remained at record lows in new production despite growing signs of improvement in the housing market, a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking reveals.Mortgage lenders originated a record low of just $44.0 billion in home-equity loans last year, down 12.0 percent from 2011. Although total home-equity lending was down, credit unions reported a 5.4 percent increase in their annual originations compared to 2011. (Includes two data charts)

The jumbo mortgage market enjoyed solid growth in new originations last year, but agency securitization programs regained some of the ground lost to the private sector back in 2011, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA in 2012 financed a record $117.6 billion of home mortgages that exceed the traditional jumbo threshold of $417,000. That was up 38.9 percent from the combined agency total back in 2011, and it was roughly twice the growth rate in non-agency jumbo mortgage originations. The non-agency jumbo market rose...[Includes three data charts]

The available supply of residential MBS grew marginally during the fourth quarter of last year as the agency market grew enough to offset the ongoing decline in outstanding non-agency MBS, according to a new analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. The supply of single-family agency MBS increased by $48.1 billion during the fourth quarter, a 0.9 percent increase over the three-month period. The Federal Reserve gobbled up all the increase and then some; its total agency MBS holdings rose by $91.6 billion during the fourth quarter, an 11.0 percent increase from the previous period. Mutual funds appeared to hold...[Includes two data charts]

Redwood Trust recently came to market with a $287.5 million convertible debt offering which was snatched up by investors – a sign that not only is the real estate investment trust doing well with its jumbo securitization business, but other mortgage issuers might meet similar results if they need to borrow money in the capital markets. Mike McMahon, a managing director at the company, told Inside MBS & ABS that the jumbo issuer decided to tap the debt market as “a way to support our investment activity for 2013. If we securitize $7 billion and retain the subs, we will need capital.” Redwood hopes...

Prepayment rates on non-agency jumbo MBS issued beginning in 2010 have been high as interest rates have declined significantly since then. However, industry analysts suggest that refinance activity is likely to be much lower for recently issued non-agency jumbo MBS as interest rates have stabilized at low levels, if not started to increase. “Stable mortgage rates are making refinancing less attractive to the newest mortgage borrowers, which should keep prepayment rates on loans originated over the last several months slower than those originated between 2010 and 2012,” said Grant Bailey, a managing director at Fitch Ratings. Only 12.6 percent of the original balance on the $237.84 million non-agency jumbo MBS issued...

Originations of non-agency jumbo mortgages increased by 19.4 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year, according to affiliated publication Inside Mortgage Finance. The sector is expected to continue to grow as jumbos are increasingly attractive for bank portfolios and securitization. An estimated $203.0 billion in non-agency jumbo mortgages were originated in 2012, marking the third straight year of increased production. The sector is driven by big banks ... [Includes one data chart]

Five years after the subprime mortgage industry imploded, there are signs of a revival as new players are entering the nonprime space. What’s developing is “old style” home-equity lending, where loan-to-value ratios are rarely larger than 75 percent and the actual funder of the loan keeps the paper in portfolio and services it. In the past two weeks, two subprime residential firms opened their doors for business: Citadel Loan Servicing and Deephaven Mortgage. Deephaven is the brainchild of ...

Credit Suisse issued a $422.2 million non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security last week with some of the loans in the private placement sourced from Two Harbors Investment. Two Harbors – a real estate investment trust that has been working to issue its own non-agency MBS for more than a year – is also expected to be the initial investor in the subordinate tranche of the MBS. CSMC Trust 2013-TH1 received AAA ratings from DBRS, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s, with 7.05 percent credit enhancement ...

Ocwen Financial has focused somewhat on performing prime mortgages as it has expanded its servicing portfolio recently, but officials at the special servicer said nonprime mortgages account for the majority of Ocwen’s planned acquisitions. Ocwen handled a $122.19 billion portfolio (excluding subservicing) at the end of 2012, according to affiliated publication Inside Mortgage Finance, including $87.23 billion in subprime mortgages. The servicer acquired $57.42 billion in agency mortgage servicing ...

The reverse mortgage lending industry has asked Senate lawmakers to expand the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s authority to strengthen its oversight of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program. Testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs recently, Peter Bell, president of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association, said it is crucial for HUD to be able to act swiftly to reduce the risk the program poses to the FHA insurance fund. Bell said HUD needs to implement changes “in a matter of months, not years” and for that to happen, it would need authority from Congress to ...