H.R. 5983, the Financial CHOICE (Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs) Act by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has incorporated the provisions of a number of bills that have either already passed the committee or the full House of Representatives and that would affect ...

Regulations and practices in the mortgage market will help protect investors in MBS backed by residential mortgages from marketplace lenders, according to Moody’s Investors Service. However, it’s not clear if the protections will be enough to offset the rating penalties often applied to originators and assets that lack historical performance records. Moody’s published its analysis last week, noting that while no residential MBS has been issued by a marketplace lender as yet, the firm expects issuance at some point. Marketplace lenders – the most prominent of which is Social Finance – connect...

An increase in interest rates will help boost originations of non-agency nonprime mortgages, according to panelists at a webinar hosted by Inside Mortgage Finance this week. Higher interest rates will make it less attractive for prime borrowers to refinance, which could force lenders to look for volume elsewhere, including the nonprime market. Purchase mortgages account for a large share of the nonprime loans originated in recent years and higher interest rates could also increase nonprime mortgages aimed at debt consolidation. Matthew Nichols, CEO of Deephaven Mortgage, said...

The House Financial Services Committee this week marked up, mostly on party lines, a comprehensive alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act that would, among other things, create a legal safe harbor for mortgage loans that are originated by a lender and then held in portfolio on its balance sheet. Democrats unanimously opposed the bill and refused to offer a single amendment, continually railing against Wells Fargo and accusing the Republicans of wanting to take the nation “back to the regulatory Stone Age.” The bill passed...

The presidential campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton issued a fact sheet indicating that the candidate supports allowing small institutions to enjoy the qualified mortgage safe harbor for portfolio loans. “Before the crisis, Wall Street promoted dangerous mortgage products, even when they knew borrowers might get into trouble, harming countless communities in the process,” said the fact sheet. “But when community banks and credit unions offer mortgages, they’re looking to invest in their neighborhoods and communities to help them grow and prosper. “Clinton supports a proposal put forward by Senate Democrats to expand the safe harbor for QM liability protection to include all mortgages made by community banks and credit unions with under $10 billion in assets – so long as the ...

Over the past week, two nonprime MBS deals came to light: a $138.89 million bond issued by Deephaven Residential Mortgage Trust and a $119.38 million security from Angel Oak Real Estate Investment Trust. Both deals were private placements backed by newly originated mortgages and underwritten by Wall Street veterans Credit Suisse and Nomura Securities. Although both were publicized this week, the transactions – which were not rated – closed...

A National Association of Realtors survey of mortgage originators during the second quarter of the year found that lending outside the parameters of the qualified mortgage standard remains in the doldrums, even though there appeared to be a slight improvement in demand from investors for such loans. Survey participants were asked to provide the percentage share of their production for safe-harbor QM loans, rebuttal-presumption QM loans, and non-QM loans. Respondents indicated that a whopping 93.2 percent of production was in the safe-harbor QM space during 2Q16, up from 89.9 percent in 1Q16. That gain came at the expense of the other two categories. Production of rebuttable-presumption QMs fell from 9.9 percent in the first quarter of the year to 6.7 percent ...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. last week released on its website updated technical assistance videos on the CFPB’s Ability-to-Repay/qualified mortgage rule. “The updated videos provide financial institution management, compliance officers and staff with resources for a better understanding of the current requirements of the ATR and QM rule,” it said. ... CFPB Director Richard Cordray last week responded to two members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee who had recently pressed him to consider exempting small community banks and credit unions from as much of its rulemaking as possible...

Almost three months after word leaked out that Angel Oak Capital Advisors was working on a second nonprime MBS, the transaction has yet to come to market. Sources close to the company, maintain that a deal is still in the works – it’s just a matter of when. The company had planned to sell a roughly $150 million MBS backed by nonprime residential loans funded by affiliates Angel Oak Home Loans, a retail shop based in Atlanta, and Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions, a wholesaler that originates through loan brokers. Presently, the Angel Oak firms are churning out...

There’s more than $50.0 billion in capital ready to acquire new nonprime home loans, including non-qualified mortgages, according to Dan Perl, chairman and CEO of Citadel Servicing, a nonprime lender. “Liquidity is abundant,” he said last week at the California Mortgage Bankers Association’s Western Secondary Market Conference in San Francisco. “There is a ready market for this and I couldn’t say that two years ago.” William Pendleton, a senior vice president of portfolio lending at Caliber Home Loans, said...