According to exclusive figures compiled by Inside Nonconforming Markets, roughly $320.0 billion in subprime mortgages were outstanding at March 31, 2015.

Several hard money lenders are involved in financing flippers, charging interest rates that are several percentage points above the going Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac rate.

With the April acquisition of Home Loan Servicing Solutions’ assets and liabilities, New Residential gained a significant portion of the clean-up call rights for outstanding non-agency MBS. Officials at the real estate investment trust said New Residential plans to execute the call rights and acquire more rights as the MBS feature presents strong profit potential. New Residential owns the clean-up call rights on more than 2,100 non-agency MBS with an outstanding balance of about $235 billion. That’s about 34 percent of the non-agency MBS market. “This should be...

Jay Bray, Nationstar’s current CEO, will assume the role of president effective June 1.

Annaly remained the biggest REIT investor in MBS, although its holdings were down 14.9 percent from the fourth quarter.

Interest rate volatility and other issues caused a reduction in jumbo-related profitability at some nonbanks in the first quarter of 2015. However, many nonbank conduits remain optimistic that the jumbo business will pay off, particularly via issuance of mortgage-backed securities. Redwood Trust reported $2.0 million in income from residential mortgage banking activities in the first quarter of 2015, down 80 percent from the previous quarter. The decline was primarily due to lower margins on ...

Two types of shared-appreciation transactions are being touted as beneficial to borrowers, either allowing them to buy homes at below-market prices or receive advanced payment for expected appreciation. Analysts at the Urban Institute note that nonprofit housing associations and municipalities offer shared-appreciation programs that can make homes more affordable for first-time buyers, people with bad credit or buyers who lack the necessary downpayment or income to ...

Impac Mortgage Holdings increased its originations of non-qualified mortgages in the first quarter of 2015. The nonbank had $11.3 million in originations of its AltQM products during the quarter, topping the $7.0 million in non-QM production Impac had in the second half of 2014. Underwriting standards for jumbo mortgages continued to loosen in April, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Underwriting for jumbos has loosened almost every month since ... [Includes three briefs]

More trouble for Ocwen: the corporate jet has been yanked!

Price reduction and improving economic factors helped push FHA volume up in the first quarter of 2015, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of agency data. Production of forward single-family mortgages insured by FHA increased by 12.3 percent in the first quarter to $39.5 billion from $35.2 billion in the prior quarter, powered by a sharp uptick in refinances. FHA’s total refi business jumped from $2.29 billion in endorsements in February, a month of record snowstorms in the Northeast, to $8.15 billion in March. Total FHA forward-mortgage business rose by 83.8 percent from February, data showed. FHA streamline refis rose a whopping 144.1 percent quarter-over-quarter while conventional-to-FHA refis jumped 29.2 percent over the same period. Falling purchase loan volume, which was the reason for the overall decline in FHA originations last year, spilled over into ... [2 charts]