A Federal Reserve economist estimates that a one-percentage-point steepening of the yield curve reduces the spread between mortgages and the 10-year Treasury yield by 40 basis points.
“If [the GSEs] are going to distribute them into securities,” said Bose George, a managing director of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, “I assume there’ll be some sort of pay-up for these loans, because people don’t know the performance yet.”
MBS investors are likely to charge a pay-up for securities backed by mortgages underwritten with VantageScore — at least until they’re confident prepayment speeds won’t accelerate.
Early interest in the VantageScore 4.0 pilot has been strong, but participants note that the new score can be up to 100 points different from Classic FICO.
Dave Paulson, CEO of the FHLB of Pittsburgh, pointed out that, prior to the 2023 banking crisis, many FHLBank officials didn’t know who their direct contact was at the Fed.