The real estate investment trust received a positive no-action letter from the SEC regarding mortgage servicing rights acquired as part of its mortgage banking activities.

The rating service made a couple of issuer-friendly tweaks to its MBS loss model criteria proposed in June. The rating service, for the first time, will con-sider catastrophic risk when assessing loans.

Several real estate investment trusts, including MFA Financial and Starwood Property Trust, are expanding their portfolio of non-qualified mortgages. The loans provide attractive returns, whether retained or bundled into an MBS.

Annaly and Chimera are generating strong returns aggregating mortgages, issuing non-agency MBS and retaining subordinate tranches from the deals. Chimera plans to be a regular issuer of non-agency MBS with GSE-eligible loans.

Credit Suisse jumps into the non-QM MBS market, tapping a lender that previously contributed to MBS from Western Asset Management Company. JPMorgan Chase and PIMCO separately brought innovative deals.

Quicken increased its contributions to prime non-agency MBS this year, including $619 million of loans going into deals issued in the second quarter. Characteristics of the deals were largely unchanged.

Moody's proposes a new way of treating private MI for loans included in non-agency MBS; Angel Oak launches a pre-qualification tool; Sachem's earnings down in 2Q; more

The proposal to end the qualified mortgage patch available to loans eligible for sale to the GSEs could boost non-agency mortgage activity, though the devil is in the details as the plan plays out leading to early 2021.

Participants in the non-agency market are looking forward to expiration of the QM patch. However, industry groups and consumer advocates want the patch to be kept intact.