Sales of mortgages and non-agency mortgage-backed securities helped reduce the government-sponsored enterprises’ exposure to nonprime mortgages in 2016. As of the end of the year, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held a combined $141.45 billion in purchased/guaranteed nonprime mortgages and nonprime MBS. The holdings were down by 5.8 percent from the end of the third quarter and 22.0 percent below the level at the end of 2015 ... [Includes one data chart]

Parkside Lending announced this week that it’s offering a new low-downpayment jumbo mortgage product that includes an option for lender-paid mortgage insurance or borrower-paid MI. The new Jumbo III product joins other wholesale jumbo offerings from Parkside, including mortgages with combined loan-to-value ratios up to 95.0 percent with no requirement for MI. Blackstone Group increased its presence in the market for rental properties by launching Finance ... [Includes two briefs]

Only 69.1 percent of home mortgages originated in 2016 wound up in agency or non-agency MBS issued last year, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. It was the second-lowest annual mortgage-securitization rate on record, and the third year in a row that the rate failed to reach the 70.0 percent mark. The low securitization rate mostly results from the fact that relatively few jumbo mortgages get out of bank portfolios and into the non-agency MBS market. According to Inside Mortgage Finance estimates, some $381.0 billion of jumbo mortgages were originated...[Includes one data table]

Conventional mortgage originations held steady during the fourth quarter of 2016, but the government-insured market saw a noticeable downturn, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Production of conventional mortgages that fit under the purchase limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac actually edged up 1.3 percent from the third quarter, hitting an estimated $322.0 billion. That was the sector’s strongest three-month origination volume since the second quarter of 2013, when lenders pumped out $363.0 billion of conventional-conforming loans. Jumbo mortgage originations were...[Includes two data tables]

Jumbo production increased significantly for some lenders during the fourth quarter and declined for others, according to a preliminary analysis of jumbo originations. Among four banks that publicly disclose their jumbo volume, First Republic Bank and Flagstar Bancorp posted increases compared with both the third quarter of 2016 and the fourth quarter of 2015. BofI Holding and EverBank Financial reported declines in jumbo production. First Republic originated $3.06 billion of single-family ...

Invictus Capital Partners, an investment management firm, is preparing to issue a nonprime mortgage-backed security backed by newly-originated home loans from four different lenders, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week. Covius, a due diligence provider, said it reviewed mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $118.96 million for the planned Verus Securitization Trust 2017-1. The bulk of the contributions for the MBS were ...

There will likely be a notable increase in the issuance of mortgage-backed securities backed by newly originated nonprime mortgages, according to Fitch Ratings. As many as eight firms are looking to join Lone Star Funds in issuing rated deals, though issuance isn’t expected to get anywhere near the levels seen in the run up to the financial crisis. Some $999.5 million in nonprime MBS was issued in 2016, according to the rating service. “Fitch estimates those figures could double in 2017, and ...

Redwood Trust is moving relatively quickly to issue its second jumbo mortgage-backed security of 2017. The firm is planning a $347.85 million transaction, according to a presale report from Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2017-2 is scheduled to close Feb. 17, about a month after Redwood closed a $342.93 million issuance. The burst of activity suggests that Redwood is seeing relatively strong pricing for jumbo MBS. Officials at Redwood couldn’t comment on ...

Two banks dominated contributions to prime non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued in the past two years, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. And a majority of the top 10 contributors to prime jumbo MBS were banks or affiliated with banks. JPMorgan Chase accounted for $4.58 billion of the prime mortgages included in prime non-agency MBS in 2015 and 2016, a 22.1 percent share of total issuance ... [Includes one data chart]

With the Federal Reserve expected to raise its benchmark overnight lending rate this year, interest rates on new mortgages are also projected to go up. Higher rates on mortgages are likely to cause a significant decline in prepayments on post-crisis jumbo mortgages and will increase default risk, according to Morningstar Credit Ratings. Within the first 12 months of origination, prepayment rates on post-crisis jumbos included in non-agency mortgage-backed securities have ...