In 2016, the non-agency MBS market was a dud…

Growth was far from uniform among servicers, Inside Mortgage Finance found…

In late December, Freddie Mac issued a $934.27 million security backed by seasoned mortgages. It was the first seasoned credit-risk transfer from the government-sponsored enterprise. While Freddie has issued fully guaranteed securitizations backed by seasoned mortgages, Freddie Mac Seasoned Credit Risk Transfer Trust, Series 2016-1 included tranches without a guarantee from the GSE, similar to a non-agency senior-sub MBS. The transaction included...

With rates falling again, lenders may be rethinking any planned layoffs...

Ginnie Mae guaranteed a total of $507.46 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities in 2016, its biggest annual volume ever, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. That was up 16.4 percent from the agency’s previous record of $435.80 billion set in 2015. (Those figures include MBS backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages, which are not included in the table below or in the rankings on pages 3-5.) In 2016, Ginnie guaranteed $497.03 billion of MBS backed by traditional forward mortgages, also a record, which was up 16.9 percent from the previous year. The biggest factor in last year’s record-setting production was the boom in VA lending, particularly VA refinance loans. Issuers securitized a record $203.03 billion of VA loans last year, up 33.0 percent from the 2015 total. Some 54.3 percent of those loans were refinance transactions. Total VA refi loan ... [4 charts]

Fannie Mae’s MBS issuance in 2016 was up 23.3 percent from the previous year…

Residential servicers started 47,955 new foreclosures in the quarter, a 1.6 percent sequential decline, and a whopping 25.3 percent fall compared to a year ago.

“It was a record month for us,” said Angel Oak executive Mike Fierman.

The seller of the MSRs is a large nonbank based in the Midwest...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency late last month issued two final rules that will give the Federal Home Loan Banks somewhat more flexibility in setting collateral requirements for advances and managing their acquired member assets (AMA). A new AMA rule was necessary because the Dodd-Frank Act requires financial regulators to remove references to ratings, which had been used in setting limits on their AMA programs, most of which involve purchases of mortgages from member institutions. Under the new rule, the FHLBanks will be able to choose their own models to determine credit enhancement requirements. The FHFA also deferred...