It’s no secret that the securitization market for jumbo loans has been anemic since the housing bust of 2008, but is mortgage insurance a possible panacea? Arch MI recently set up a new subsidiary that will write coverage on jumbo loans as well as portfolio products. In its press statement, Arch said it created Arch Mortgage Guaranty Co. in part to aid lenders that want to securitize. In a recent interview with Inside MBS & ABS, Arch MI President David Gansberg said...

Proponents of the non-agency MBS market continue to work on initiatives to revive the market, with progress somewhat slow but steady. The Treasury Department and the Structured Finance Industry Group are facilitating separate efforts to entice investors to buy new non-agency MBS. At the ABS Vegas conference sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network this week, Olga Gorodetsky, a senior policy advisor at the Treasury, said there’s no timeframe for when the benchmark non-agency MBS the Treasury is trying to facilitate might be issued. “It will be market driven,” she said. Gorodetsky said...[Includes one data chart]

The two best things about the mortgage origination market in the fourth quarter were that it meant 2014 wasn’t as bad as once feared, and that refinance demand had picked up. But a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking reveals two other positive trends: the jumbo and home-equity markets continued to gain strength in the final three months of 2014. Lenders originated an estimated $67 billion of jumbo mortgages during the fourth quarter, up 3.1 percent from the previous period. Home-equity production bounced 5.0 percent higher, to an estimated $21 billion. Neither gain was...[Includes two data charts]

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro faced the wrath of the GOP majority during a House Financial Services Committee hearing this week on the state of the FHA, focusing on the agency’s recent decision to cut annual mortgage insurance premiums. While Castro may have been warned about stepping into the lion’s den, he appeared ill-prepared for the confrontation with Republicans, unable to answer basic questions such as FHA’s net income, overall delinquency rate and the serious delinquency rate for 2014. Democrats, on the other hand, helped the embattled secretary regain his footing by expressing support for FHA’s efforts and putting perspective on some of FHA’s actions to strengthen the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund and help qualify more borrowers for FHA credit. Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, set...

JPMorgan Chase this week issued the largest jumbo mortgage-backed security seen since the market started to return in 2010. The $940.06 million deal was backed by adjustable-rate mortgages originated by First Republic Bank. Previously, the largest post-crash deal was a $666.13 million jumbo MBS from Redwood Trust in February 2013. Prior to the financial crisis, many non-agency MBS had balances that topped $1.0 billion, while most jumbo MBS ...

First Republic Bank was the top contributor to jumbo MBS issued in 2014, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Officials at First Republic note that the bank tends to sell its originations of fixed-rate mortgages while adjustable-rate mortgages make for better portfolio holdings. However, the secondary market bid was strong enough for First Republic to sell some jumbo ARMs during the year, including a ... [Includes one data chart]

Two Harbors Investment is using Federal Home Loan Bank advances to significantly increase its activity in the jumbo market. The real estate investment trust issued three jumbo MBS in 2014 totaling $1.0 billion. Officials revealed this week that Two Harbors’ jumbo conduit origination activities have a current average run rate of $300 million per month. “That’s putting us on track to have substantially more volume and complete more securitizations this year ...

After loosening every month for more than a year, underwriting on jumbo mortgages started to tighten in mid-2014, according to new data from the Mortgage Bankers Association and AllRegs. In the past three months, jumbo underwriting has started to loosen again and standards are the loosest they have been since early 2011.Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions announced that it launched a mini-correspondent offering for non-agency nonprime ... [Includes three briefs]

Reverse mortgage lenders now have the option to delay calling a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage due and payable where there is an eligible non-borrowing spouse and a case number assigned prior to Aug. 4, 2014. A delay would postpone foreclosure triggered by the death of the HECM borrower or the last surviving borrower and allow the qualified, non-borrowing spouse to stay in the house for a certain period until the HECM is resolved. Under revised FHA guidance, reverse mortgage lenders are allowed to assign eligible HECMs to the Department of Housing and Urban Development upon the death of the borrower. They have the option of foreclosing in accordance with the contract as endorsed or choose the “mortgagee optional election assignment (MOE).” MOE means the optional assignment selected by a lender for a HECM loan with an assigned FHA case number prior to ...

The Mortgage Bankers Association notched a win for small, independent issuers after the Financial Accounting Standards Board agreed with the group’s position on the accounting of seriously delinquent loans in Ginnie Mae pools. At issue is whether companies that service pools with loans that are 90 days or more delinquent should put those loans on their balance sheet even if they have no intention of buying the loans out of the pool. According to the MBA, a Big Four accounting firm issued controversial guidance which would have been burdensome for small mortgage-backed securities issuers that have limited funding and no incentive or history of buying defective loans out of pools. After months of exchanges, FASB staff finally agreed with the MBA’s view that the decision process involves two steps. First, a loan must be 90 days or more delinquent and trigger ...