Ocwen Financial continues to work toward satisfying regulatory requirements that would allow the nonbank to resume acquisitions of mortgage servicing rights. However, officials stress that MSR acquisitions aren’t the main focus for the company. “Right now, I don’t see in the marketplace a lot of opportunities for the kind of servicing transfers that would interest Ocwen and that’s why we’re focusing more of our efforts on generating new assets ... [Includes one data chart]

The nonprime mortgages held by the government-sponsored enterprises continued a steady decline in the third quarter of 2015, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held a combined $153.22 billion in purchased/guaranteed nonprime mortgages as of the end of the third quarter of 2015, according to estimates by Inside Nonconforming Markets. The holdings declined by 3.7 percent ... [Includes one data chart]

First Republic Bank has contributed at least 21.3 percent of the loans that have been included in jumbo mortgage-backed securities issued in the first nine months of this year, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. The bank was identified as having contributed $2.18 billion into jumbo MBS issued in the first three quarters of 2015, including $619.19 million in the third quarter. First Republic’s contributions to jumbo MBS issued in the third quarter alone topped the contributions of any other lender in the first nine months of the year. Jumbo MBS issuers and rating services generally disclose...[Includes two data tables]

In late December, issuers of new non-agency MBS will become subject to new risk-retention requirements. It’s not clear whether anyone will notice. The vast majority of loans securitized in jumbo MBS over the past few years meet the qualified-mortgage standard. And because federal regulators opted to synchronize the QM standard with the separate qualified residential-mortgage standard, jumbo MBS backed entirely by QMs will be exempt from the 5 percent risk-retention requirement. When the final rule came out, Redwood Trust backed...

Beach Point Capital Management early next week will issue a roughly $75 million MBS collateralized by nonprime mortgages that were originated over the past year by Citadel Loan Servicing, Irvine, CA, according to officials briefed on the transaction. As Inside MBS & ABS went to press this week, certain details on the security were beginning to leak out, including the fact that Nomura Securities “is running the book” on the deal, said one source. Wells Fargo will be the custodian and backup servicer. The privately held Citadel will continue to service the underlying loans. The yield on the private-place bond is...

While a number of jumbo lenders reduced their reliance on mortgage brokers in the years after the financial crisis, Primary Capital Mortgage has sourced a large share of its production from brokers. And the lender has earned strong assessments from rating services in the process. Moody’s Investors Service said 71 percent of the jumbo mortgages PCM originated between the second quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015 were through brokers. The lender originated $114 million in jumbos in that span. The majority of PCM’s originations are agency mortgages. The rating service said...

Questions from Inside Nonconforming Markets prompted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to acknowledge last week that its director misspoke during a speech at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention. In arguing that the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule hasn’t caused a significant reduction in mortgage originations, Richard Cordray said last week that “most” jumbo loans are non-qualified mortgages. While comprehensive data on the non-QM share of jumbo mortgages is not available, a number of data sources suggest that most jumbos are in fact QMs, not non-QMs. Three of the five largest jumbo lenders told...

A typical jumbo mortgage-backed security is stronger in many ways than the non-agency MBS-like transaction Freddie Mac issued at the end of July, according to a recent analysis by Andrew Davidson & Co. However, the Freddie deal benefitted from a wrap provided by the government-sponsored enterprise. Freddie Mac Whole Loan Securities Trust Series 2015 SC01 was backed by mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $302.96 million. The risk-sharing transaction was structured as a cash securitization with $278 million in senior certificates guaranteed by Freddie and approximately $23 million in unguaranteed subordinate certificates. Andrew Davidson compared...

A new research paper aims to settle the debate about whether loose underwriting or the downturn in home prices was the biggest factor in the poor performance of subprime mortgages originated before the financial crisis. There was a sharp divergence in the performance of subprime mortgages originated in 2003 and those originated in 2006 and 2007. Some have suggested that the subprime mortgages originated just before the crash defaulted at higher rates largely because underwriting standards on the loans deteriorated, while others claim the main issue was that house price declines left the borrowers with negative equity. A paper by Christopher Palmer, a professor of real estate at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, claims...

Citadel Loan Servicing, Irvine, CA, one of the most active nonprime residential lenders in the market, is on track to fund a company-record $400 million worth of mortgages this year, more than double what it produced last year. In a brief interview with Inside Nonconforming Markets this week, company founder and CEO Dan Perl said his goal for next year is $1 billion – all in loans that do not meet the qualified-mortgage standard. If the privately held Citadel – Perl is the chief shareholder – can hit...