Pricing has improved sequentially with each of the three jumbo mortgage-backed securities Redwood Trust has issued this year, according to officials at the real estate investment trust. Redwood’s most recent deal, a $343.16 million jumbo MBS, was issued in October. Christopher Abate, Redwood’s president and CFO, said it’s possible that the REIT will issue another jumbo MBS this year. Marty Hughes, Redwood’s CEO, added a caveat about uncertainty in the financial markets ...

Low mortgage interest rates appear to have contributed to a decline in applications for non-qualified mortgages at Impac Mortgage Holdings in the third quarter, according to officials at the nonbank. “A decline in mortgage interest rates generally increases the volume of conventional refinance products over non-QM loans,” Impac said in a quarterly filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week. Of the 58 banks that report to the Federal Reserve on the market for ...

A start-up is working to allow retirees and other individual investors to buy into non-qualified mortgages, a market that so far has been dominated by hedge funds and other large institutional investors, along with occasional inclusion in non-agency mortgage-backed securities. Brad Walker, CEO of Income&, said the new platform offers an alternative to traditional fixed-income investments. He said Income& is trying to create a higher-yielding, lower-risk fixed-income instrument ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent actions against an unspecified number of lenders that offer non-qualified mortgages prompted some criticism about how the regulator enforces standards in the ability-to-repay rule. The CFPB cited lenders for originating non-QMs that allowed “alternative income documentation” for salaried borrowers. The CFPB said the products offered by the lenders relied primarily on the assets of each borrower when making an ATR determination ...

The election of Donald Trump and Republican control of Congress could prompt changes to standards for qualified mortgages, according to industry analysts. QM standards were established by the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 and took effect in 2014 as part of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay rule. Trump’s financial services policy implementation team said it will work to dismantle the DFA and “replace it with new policies to encourage economic growth and ...

Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay an undisclosed settlement amount to ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. to resolve allegations of fraud related to insurance on a collateralized debt obligation backed by subprime mortgages. Details of the Abacus CDO settlement were not disclosed, although ACA initially sought $120 million in damages. First filed in 2011, ACA’s lawsuit accused Goldman Sachs and hedge fund Paulson & Co. of fraudulently persuading it to guarantee payments on the CDO prior to the financial crisis. ACA alleged...

An affiliate of Shelter Growth Capital Partners issued a $113.71 million nonprime mortgage-backed security last week, according to offering documents obtained by Inside Nonconforming Markets. SG Residential Mortgage Trust 2016-1 is the first MBS from Shelter Growth’s SG Capital Partners. Shelter Growth is an investment manager and hedge fund with $1.08 billion in assets under management as of June 1, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission ...

Purchase mortgages accounted for a large share of the loans in prime non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued during the third quarter of 2016, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Purchase mortgages accounted for 67.3 percent of the $4.07 billion in prime non-agency MBS issued during the quarter. That was the highest quarterly share for purchase mortgages since at least the first quarter of 2013. The purchase-mortgage ... [Includes two data charts]

Participants in the non-agency market are concerned that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau hasn’t done enough to provide lenders and investors with certainty regarding the liability associated with the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule. The CFPB issued a proposed rule in August that would clarify a number of concerns regarding TRID. But the bureau’s proposed rule didn’t include guidance CFPB Director Richard Cordray had detailed in a Dec. 29 letter to the Mortgage ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently forced “one or more lenders” to take corrective actions regarding income-verification practices for non-qualified mortgages. The CFPB said the lenders weren’t verifying borrowers’ income properly under the ability-to-repay rule. The CFPB found that some lenders offered non-QMs that allowed for “alternative income documentation” for salaried borrowers. The CFPB said the products offered by the lenders relied primarily on the assets of ...