A lot of ABS issuers that sat out the final three months of 2016 came back to the market early this year, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. Some $53.38 billion of non-mortgage ABS were issued during the first quarter, a huge 55.9 percent jump from the previous three-month period. The market didn’t quite match the high point of last year, but issuance in the first three months of 2017 was up 23.1 percent from the same period in 2016. First-time issuers and those that didn’t issue in the fourth quarter accounted...[Includes two data tables]

Recent signs of life in the nonprime securitization market have lifted the hopes of participants from coast to coast, but a potential snafu could be in the works in the form of strong investor demand for whole loans. According to some participants, recent whole-loan bids have been as high as 104. “That’s for newly originated non-qualified mortgages,” said one manager who spoke under the condition his name not be used. The implication is...

With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac set to lose their capital buffers in eight short months, industry trade groups, think tanks and policy wonks are churning out reform blueprints at warp speed these days even though Congress likely won’t act until sometime next year, if then. Last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association floated its plan to reconstitute the two government-sponsored enterprises – followed by several critiques, not all of them kind – and this week the Independent Community Bankers of America published its proposal. Both plans throw...

Lenders offering non-qualified mortgages that rely solely on a borrower’s assets need to carefully prove the borrower’s ability to repay, according to guidance from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In a notice issued this week, the regulator cautioned that a large downpayment alone isn’t sufficient to prove a borrower’s ability to repay a non-QM that is based on the consumer’s assets. The spring edition of the CFPB’s supervisory highlights publication provides insights from ...

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, introduced a revised version of the Financial CHOICE Act this week. The bill would impact many regulatory reforms included in the Dodd-Frank Act, which was signed into law in 2010. Perhaps most significant for the non-agency market, the CHOICE Act would apply qualified-mortgage protections to home loans held in portfolio. Banks offering mortgages with interest-only features, balloon payments or high debt-to-income ratios that don’t currently ...

Late last week, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, released a detailed discussion draft of a revised version of his Financial CHOICE Act that would eviscerate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and make a number of other changes to the Dodd-Frank Act and a host of its mortgage-related regulations. Title VII of the draft, recently dubbed CHOICE Act 2.0, would dismantle the parts of the CFPB that the lending industry and other critics have found to be most problematic: its rulemaking, supervisory and enforcement authority, including unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices. The previous version of the bill would have retained...

The CFPB was not alone in its crackdown last week on Ocwen Financial over its alleged mortgage servicing failures and violations. The same day the bureau announced its action, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Office of Financial Regulation Commissioner Drew Breakspear filed a federal civil consumer protection lawsuit against Ocwen and subsidiaries, Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC, and Ocwen Mortgage Servicing, Inc., for what they called “mortgage servicing misconduct.” According to the complaint, Ocwen harmed citizens of the Sunshine State by filing illegal foreclosures, mishandling loan modifications, misapplying mortgage payments, failing to pay insurance premiums from escrow and collecting excessive fees. Ocwen services roughly 125,000 home mortgages in the state. The complaint, filed in federal court in West Palm Beach, ...

The CFPB has put out a proposed rule to help mortgage lenders comply with the updates it made to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act regulation back in 2015, most of which haven’t even taken effect yet. “The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act shines a much-needed spotlight on the mortgage market, which is the largest consumer financial market in the world,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Today’s proposal reflects the bureau’s ongoing and substantive engagement with stakeholders in the marketplace, and will help industry meet its new reporting obligations.” Among the suggested alterations in the agency’s proposed rule is the clarification of certain key terms, such as “temporary financing.” The CFPB wants to amend the commentary to the current final rule to ...

Industry representatives thanked the CFPB for making an effort to facilitate compliance with the pending Home Mortgage Disclosure Act final rule, most of which takes effect Jan. 1, 2018. However, the fact that revisions are being offered at all is a sign that the bureau just cannot get it right, according to some officials. Anne Canfield, executive director of the Consumer Mortgage Coalition, said her membership always appreciates any effort any of the regulators make to improve a regulation. “However, the CFPB’s proposed amendments to its HMDA regulation falls far short of what is needed,” she said. One of the CMC’s concerns is that since the bureau has not identified what it intends to do with the data, how does ...

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice has convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to grant it 10 minutes to present its unusual case when oral arguments are heard in the upcoming en banc proceedings in PHH Corp. v. CFPB. “Upon consideration of the unopposed motion of the United States for leave to participate in oral argument, it is ordered that the motion be granted,” the appeals court said in its one-page order. PHH Corp. et al., as petitioners will have 30 minutes to make their case, as will the CFPB as respondent. “The United States agrees with petitioner PHH Corp. that the for-cause removal provision is unconstitutional, but agrees with the CFPB that the ...