The Structured Finance Industry Group continues to work on getting MBS and ABS classified as “high quality liquid assets.” The industry group has renewed hope for the ongoing effort due to the recent passage of regulatory relief in Congress.
In what is largely an intellectual exercise, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said last week that the agency will propose a new risk-based capital rule for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac even though it won’t apply while they’re in conservatorship.
A Washington state appeals court recently upheld a lower court decision to dismiss non-agency MBS claims filed by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle against RBS Securities, Inc.
CFPB’s Mick Mulvaney: “Today, after an exhaustive review by outside experts, including a comprehensive ‘white-hat hacking’ effort, we can lift that hold.”
The purchase-mortgage share of jumbo originations increased in 2017 on an annual basis, according to an Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis of data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The loans accounted for 63.6 percent of the $317.29 billion of jumbos originated in 2017, up from a 53.5 percent share the previous year. The emphasis on purchase mortgages varied among the top jumbo lenders. Purchase loans accounted for 69.4 percent ... [Includes three data charts]
Ellington Financial wants to speed up its issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities but competition for non-qualified mortgages is getting in the way. Ellington issued its first MBS backed by non-QMs in November. All of the mortgages in the $141.2 million deal were originated by LendSure. Ellington has an equity investment in the lender. Laurence Penn, president and CEO of Ellington, said the firm is preparing to issue another non-agency MBS and the nonbank would prefer to ...
More small banks can soon receive qualified-mortgage status for certain originations even if the loans would otherwise be non-QMs thanks to provisions in the Dodd-Frank reform legislation signed into law last week. The new type of QM will be available to banks and credit unions with less than $10.0 billion in total assets. Originations held in portfolio by such institutions will receive QM status if they meet a variety of standards. The exemption is already provided to depositories with ...
Mortgage brokers and their wholesale funders gained some share in the FHA/VA market during the first quarter of 2018, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis. Survey data collected by Inside Mortgage Finance show that all three production channels took big hits in FHA/VA volume in early 2018. The $49.11 billion in government-insured lending reported by participating lenders was down 20.7 percent from the previous quarter and 10.8 percent below the volume the group generated in the first three months of 2017. Correspondent production remained the biggest source of FHA/VA loans, accounting for 53.5 percent of the survey sample in the first quarter. But production through this channel was down 22.2 percent from the previous three-month period, a slightly larger decline than seen overall. Four of the top five lenders in the group have strong correspondent platforms, especially ... [Chart]