Ginnie Mae guaranteed a total of $507.46 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities in 2016, its biggest annual volume ever, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. That was up 16.4 percent from the agency’s previous record of $435.80 billion set in 2015. (Those figures include MBS backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages, which are not included in the table below or in the rankings on pages 3-5.) In 2016, Ginnie guaranteed $497.03 billion of MBS backed by traditional forward mortgages, also a record, which was up 16.9 percent from the previous year. The biggest factor in last year’s record-setting production was the boom in VA lending, particularly VA refinance loans. Issuers securitized a record $203.03 billion of VA loans last year, up 33.0 percent from the 2015 total. Some 54.3 percent of those loans were refinance transactions. Total VA refi loan ... [4 charts]

Ever since the nation’s financial crisis, commercial banks and other depositories have dominated the second-lien business and likely will continue to do so in the coming years, but that isn’t stopping nonbanks from testing the waters once again. According to research by Inside Mortgage Finance, several nonbanks have slipped back into the market, albeit with muted production volumes. And many of the firms that have crept back in are partnering with depositories. The reason for the strategy is...

Mortgage lenders that generate a lot of jumbo home loans tend to rely heavily on their retail production platforms, while third-party originators play a bigger role in agency-eligible production. That’s one finding from an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of exclusive survey data collected by Inside Mortgage Finance. Lenders participating in the survey reported that 80.3 percent of their third-quarter jumbo production came through their retail platforms ... [Includes two data charts]

The mortgage securitization rate jumped significantly higher during the third quarter of 2016, spurred by a bigger market share for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A total of $416.5 billion of relatively newly-originated mortgages were included in single-family MBS issued during the third quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. That figure, which excludes modified loans and most mortgages aged more than three months, represented 71.2 percent of the $585.0 billion of first-lien mortgages originated during the period. During the second quarter, the securitization rate was...[Includes one data table]

Social Finance, a nonbank that started offering mortgages in 2014, is preparing to issue a $168.79 million jumbo mortgage-backed security, according to presale reports. It will be the first jumbo MBS from SoFi, which originated all of the mortgages backing the deal. While SoFi started operations in 2011 as a peer-to-peer or marketplace lender, Fitch Ratings noted that its funding strategy has evolved to more traditional sources, such as banks and other large financial institutions ...

A new nonprime MBS from an affiliate of Lone Star Funds has two significant distinctions: it’s the first post-crisis nonprime MBS backed by new originations to receive a AAA rating and it’s the largest post-crisis nonprime MBS backed by new originations. COLT 2016-3 Mortgage Loan Trust received AAA ratings from DBRS and Fitch Ratings. “Over the past year, Fitch has become more comfortable with the operational risk of the issuer through extensive due diligence results, multiple ...

Proposals aimed at reviving the issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities have done little thus far to get volumes anywhere near the levels seen before the financial crisis. Industry participants suggest that there are a number of factors beyond proposed standards from trade groups that are limiting issuance. The American Securitization Forum started its effort to revive the non-agency mortgage-backed security market in 2009. The first post-crisis jumbo MBS backed by newly originated ...

Mortgage brokers played a somewhat diminished role in jumbo mortgage originations during the third quarter, according to an exclusive Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis and jumbo lender profile. Survey data from Inside Mortgage Finance show that brokers were responsible for just 3.9 percent of jumbo originations in the third quarter, down from 4.5 percent in the previous period. The retail (79.8 percent) and correspondent (16.3 percent) shares were ... [Includes one data chart]

FHA reverse mortgage lenders capped the third quarter of 2016 with a 2.2 percent volume increase over the previous quarter, ending the first nine months with $11.0 billion in new Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans. The year-over-year story, however, was different, as nine-month originations fell 10.5 percent from the same period last year. Purchase HECMs comprised the bulk of originations, 86.3 percent. Unlike in FY 2015, when the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund’s healthy HECM portfolio helped pushed the capital reserve ratio above the statutory 2.0 percent requirement, the portfolio appeared to be in bad shape in FY 2016. The fiscal 2016 actuarial audit of the MMIF projected a negative $7.7 billion economic value for the HECM program, dramatically down from last year’s estimated $6.8 billion. Auditors attributed the decline to adverse effects of “incorporating deeper ... [Chart]

Home-equity lending cooled off in the third quarter of 2016 as consumers took advantage of low interest rates to refinance rather than draw down more second-mortgage debt. Lenders originated an estimated $50.7 billion of home-equity loans during the third quarter, including home-equity lines of credit and closed-end second mortgages. Although that was down 5.2 percent from the second quarter, it still marked the second highest three-month volume since the housing market collapse in 2008. And depository institutions, the dominant lenders in the HEL market, reported...[Includes three data tables]