High-touch servicer Nationstar Mortgage announced this week that it plans to raise up to $400.0 million via an initial public offering. The servicer - owned by Fortress Investment Group - primarily focuses on defaulted agency mortgages. Nationstar serviced a $64.2 billion portfolio as of the end of 2010, with subprime mortgages accounting for a 14.6 percent share. Reps. Gary Miller, R-CA and Brad Sherman, D-CA, recently introduced legislation to permanently increase the conforming loan limits. Few analysts believe that H.R. 1754, "the Preserving Equal Access to Mortgage Finance Programs Act," will gain much traction considering...

Government housing policy and agencies played a much larger role in the housing crisis than initially believed, but a fresh look at the conclusions of two GSE critics has prompted a top JPMorgan Chase analyst to take the unusual step of issuing a public retraction.

The so-called RMBS 2.0 features squeaky-clean collateral and high-definition transparency, but industry experts say, more importantly, that after years of mostly talk there is now some momentum in the market. Adam Yarnold, a managing director at Barclays Capital, said there are half a dozen residential mortgage conduits – including his firm – that are buying loans. During a panel session at the secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association, he noted that more broker/dealers are in the wings. Barclays is buying high-quality loans with loan-to-value ratios below 70 percent and debt-to-income ratios that come close to the standards proposed by federal regulators for qualified residential mortgages, Yarnold said. The company hosts a web-based portal through which it locks loans and...

The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly looking into the securitization and put-back practices of Credit Suisse and JPMorgan Chase in connection with alleged recoveries from defective mortgages repurchased by originators from securitization trusts. Credit Suisse confirmed to Inside MBS & ABS a disclosure made by bond insurer MBIA Insurance Corp. that the Zurich-based bank had received a subpoena from the SEC seeking data on repurchases of certain defective loans. The disclosure was made in a lawsuit against three Credit Suisse units – Credit Suisse Securities, DLJ Mortgage Capital, Inc. and Select Portfolio Servicing – which MBIA filed with the New York State Supreme Court on April 29. The suit seeks to compel Credit Suisse to turn over data which MBIA believes would bolster its fraud and breach-of-contract claims against...

A handful of high-profile developments on the representations and warranties front over the last few months is prompting non-agency investors to contemplate whether they should start pricing in the benefits associated from repurchases. A few weeks ago, Bank of America and mortgage insurer Assured Guaranty reached a...

“The [jumbo] market is much bigger than the banks’ balance sheets,” according to Randy Robertson, a managing director and co-head of securitized products at BlackRock. The firm’s jumbo mortgage real-estate investment trust has been operating for four months and aims to help re-establish the...

Purchases of mortgage-backed securities via the Public-Private Investment Program have resulted in returns of about 27.0 percent for taxpayers, according to figures reported by the Treasury Department. However, the impressive profit is based on return on equity alone, excluding loans made to... [Includes one graph and one data chart]

While working to establish a jumbo whole loan conduit, PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust has been able to turn profits by investing in distressed mortgages. The real-estate investment trust avoided purchases of mortgage-backed securities during the first quarter of 2011 and increased its profits due to...

The trustee for bankrupt former jumbo lender Thornburg Mortgage filed a number of lawsuits last week claiming that the lender’s warehouse lenders made “unjustified” margin calls on Thornburg, forcing the lender into bankruptcy. In a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore, Joel Sher, the trustee of what is now known as...