The days of it being a seller’s market for mortgage banking franchises appears to be over, with current owners are increasingly unwilling to part with their companies at reduced prices. As one merger-and-acquisitions specialist put it, “It’s just hard getting deals done these days.” It looks like a case of supply and demand – and, of course, cash. At the very least, sellers want to receive book value for their companies plus some type of “earn-out” that could last up to 10 years. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance over the past week, the ratio of buyers to sellers has...
FHA launched into the new year with a slight dip in forward mortgage loan originations in January from December with nonbanks leading the charge, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of agency data. Lenders originated $11.8 billion in FHA-insured loans in January, a 0.7 percent decrease from December and down 3.5 percent from the prior year. FHA was charging a higher annual mortgage insurance premium of 1.35 percent for most of the month until a 50 basis point reduction, effective Jan. 26, lowered the MIP to 0.85 percent for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage with a five percent downpayment, and down to 0.80 percent for a similar FHA loan with more than five percent downpayment. The impact of the reduced MIP on February originations is still unclear, but most FHA lenders are expecting a boost in volume because many consumers ... [1 chart]
Issuers and other participants in future structured-finance deals will face a higher hurdle of data quality expectations from Moody’s Investors Service, according to a new credit rating methodology the company put out this week. An important part of the initial rating analysis that Moody’s will perform of a structured security is an evaluation of the attributes of the assets that underlie it, the document said. “In assessing those characteristics, we typically use...
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