A $1.5 trillion year is doable: according to survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance, residential funders originated $805 billion in the first half.

Investors at the ABS East conference sponsored by Information Management Network last week in Miami largely agreed that many MBS and ABS sectors are stronger than they were before the crisis in terms of issuance and certainly in terms of performance. While the investor base for securities has declined from the boom times of 10 years ago, there are also fewer distressed sellers. “You tend to see that bonds are held in strong hands, which makes for a strong underpinning,” said Alessandro Pagani, a portfolio manager and head of securitized assets at Loomis Sayles. “It makes for a pretty good balance between supply and demand.” John Vibert, a managing director at Prudential Fixed Income, said...

The delinquency rate for loans backing commercial MBS was fairly stable in August, according to reports from Fitch Ratings and Trepp. Although Fitch reports that loan delinquencies fell one notch to 4.52 percent from the previous month, Trepp data show that the overall CMBS delinquency rate inched upward to 5.45 percent in August, from 5.42 in July. Late payment balances fell...

Are you ready for a government shutdown, one that could screw up the mortgage market? If not now, maybe later in the year...

Feeding the MSR growth: credit unions, which increased their holdings of un-securitized home mortgages by 8.2 percent over that period...

Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s, said the biggest impediment to opening up the FHA credit box is the issue of loan certification.

The new non-agency security has credit enhancement of 49.9 percent on the top-rated tranche.

The evidence is somewhat suspect because as the analysts noted, the 43 percent cap on DTI ratios for QMs doesn’t currently apply to the FHA, VA or GSE mortgages.

The old GMAC servicing platform in Iowa appears to be on a death-watch as Ocwen sells GSE servicing rights and opts for cheaper labor overseas...

Bond investing giant PIMCO has quietly purchased First Guaranty Mortgage Corp., Frederick, MD, for roughly $50 million, gaining a toehold into an industry it has been carefully eyeing for well over two years now. The acquisition – confirmed to Inside Mortgage Finance by several sources – comes roughly three months after the company pulled out of talks with RoundPoint Mortgage, the nation’s 24th largest servicer. PIMCO – formally known as Pacific Investment Management Co. – has tried...