Chimera Investment emerged from years of accounting issues with an ability to return to the new-issue jumbo mortgage-backed security market. However, the real estate investment trust has focused its new investment strategy on agency MBS as well as multifamily activity and a unique restructuring of vintage non-agency MBS. Matthew Lambiase, president and CEO of the real estate investment trust, said the returns offered by new jumbo MBS aren’t currently attractive. “The economics are ...

Proponents of the non-agency market are concerned that the final rule recently issued by federal regulators setting risk-retention requirements for certain securitized mortgages includes an exemption for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Beginning in late 2015, risk-retention requirements for residential mortgages will apply to newly issued non-agency mortgage-backed securities collateralized by loans that don’t meet standards for qualified mortgages. Issuers or lenders contributing to ...

Proponents of the non-agency market have seen little help in recent actions by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The FHFA continued its practice of maintaining high-cost loan limits for the government-sponsored enterprises and the FHFA’s strategic plan puts an emphasis on “preserving and conserving” the GSEs’ assets. Last week, the FHFA announced that conforming loan limits for 2015 will be largely unchanged compared with loan limits for 2014. Loan limits will increase ...

Some 1.0 million outstanding borrowers in the Home Affordable Modification Program are eligible for new incentives announced this week by the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Among other changes, HAMP borrowers will be eligible to earn $5,000 in the sixth year of their modification. The incentive payment is in addition to the $5,000 that has been available to HAMP borrowers that remained current ... [Includes three briefs]

The benchmark non-agency mortgage-backed security that the Treasury Department is organizing will vary significantly from recent non-agency MBS. Michael Stegman, counselor on housing finance policy to the Treasury, revealed new details about the planned transaction last week in New York City at the Private-Label RMBS Symposium hosted by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network. Stegman said the benchmark non-agency MBS will ideally be ...

As leading figures in the secondary market continue their efforts to reboot the non-agency mortgage-backed securities sector, attracting private capital remains the single most critical factor in the equation. However, during a recent industry conference, institutional investors made it clear that in order for them to return, the market’s infrastructure will need to provide stronger protections, enhanced transparency and an improved ability to respond when a deal starts to go sour ...

The latest “green papers” in the Structured Finance Industry Group’s RMBS 3.0 standards-setting project focus on due-diligence disclosures for investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities. The SFIG noted that potential investors in non-agency MBS are particularly interested in findings conducted by third-party due-diligence firms before a security is issued. The SFIG proposed a model form that would disclose an “extract” of due-diligence findings to investors ...

FirstKey Mortgage, a jumbo conduit indirectly owned by funds managed by Cerberus Capital Management, is set to issue its first jumbo mortgage-backed security. FirstKey ramped up its jumbo activity in the past year and to this point has aggregated loans for inclusion in jumbo MBS from other issuers, including WinWater Home Mortgage, another relatively new jumbo MBS player. The $285.98 million FirstKey Mortgage Trust 2014-1 is set to receive AAA ratings ...

The nonprime mortgages held by the government-sponsored enterprises continue to run off, though the GSEs have sold some of their holdings of nonprime mortgage-backed securities in the past year, according to industry analysts. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held a combined $238.83 billion in nonprime mortgages as of the end of the third quarter of 2014, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Purchased/guaranteed mortgages ... [Includes one data chart]

Prohibiting real estate investment trusts from joining the Federal Home Loan Bank system would hurt efforts to revive the non-agency market, according to two REITs that have gained access to FHLBank financing. Officials at both Two Harbors Investment and Redwood Trust said FHLBank advances helped the REITs fund originations of jumbo mortgages in the third quarter of 2014. Both companies recently gained access to FHLBank advances via captive insurance entities ...