Cart

Inside MBS & ABS

August 3, 2012

View Archived Issues

FHFA Announces Further Expansion of HARP 2.0 After ‘Exceeding Expectations,’ Rejects GSE Principal Reduction

Encouraged by the performance so far of the recently revised Home Affordable Refinance Program, the Federal Housing Finance Authority announced this week it is working to expand the pool of borrowers eligible to refinance through HARP by aligning Freddie Mac policies with Fannie Mae’s. The agency announced the additional tweaks to HARP at the same time it said it would not sanction a Treasury Department-endorsed effort to allow the two government-sponsored enterprises to write down mortgage principal as part of loan modifications. The FHFA said that Freddie will soon issue... Read More

G-Fees Heading Higher

The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week said that it will announce new “gradual” adjustments in MBS guarantee fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The adjustments will take effect late in the year, said the FHFA, which plans to reveal the changes by the end of this month. MBS guarantee fees rose... Read More

Trading Volume for Non-Agency MBS Increases As Housing Recovers, Some Banks Stocking Up

Sales and purchases of vintage non-agency MBS have been well above average levels in recent weeks as investors see value in the sector with the housing market recovering. The purchases are being made by traditional buyers such as money managers and insurance companies as well as by banks, according to industry analysts. Daily trading volume of non-agency MBS has averaged about $3.0 billion in recent weeks, based on an analysis of TRACE data by Barclays Capital. During the past six to 12 months, daily non-agency MBS trading averaged $1.7 billion to $2.0 billion. Some $1.09 trillion in non-agency MBS was... Read More

Springleaf Continues Cleaning Out Balance Sheet, Readies Second Subprime MBS of 2012

Springleaf Financial Services is gearing up to issue its second non-agency MBS of the year, a $970.0 million deal backed by seasoned subprime mortgages. The company, formerly known as American General Finance, stopped new residential mortgage originations in January of this year. Now owned by Fortress Investment, Springleaf issued a $473.1 million MBS backed by seasoned subprime loans in early April. At the end of the first quarter, the company said it had $9.7 billion of real-estate finance receivables on its books, most of which were classified as nonprime or subprime. Springleaf Mortgage Loan Trust 2012-2 features... Read More

More Jurisdictions Eye Eminent Domain Seizure Of Mortgages; Industry Continues to Protest

Chicago, Suffolk County, NY, and Berkley, CA, have joined the ranks of local governments considering the controversial notion of using eminent domain to seize performing underwater mortgages, restructure their terms and repackage them for sale to other private investors. “Given the size of the foreclosure epidemic in Chicago, the city should explore every possible avenue to keep families in their homes and reduce the number of vacant properties that breed crime and erode the stability of our neighborhoods,” Alderman Edward Burke, chairman of the city’s finance committee, said last week. In March 2012, nearly 667,000 Chicago-area homeowners were... Read More

Moody’s Takes Bigger Role in Student Loan, Business Finance Sectors in ABS Ratings Race

Moody’s Investors Service was the most active rating service in the growing non-mortgage ABS market during the first half of 2012, but a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis shows that the company followed a somewhat unusual path to get there. Auto loan ABS has been the dominant sector in the market this year, accounting for 47.3 percent of new issuance through the first six months of 2012. But Moody’s share of auto ABS ratings has slipped from 79.0 percent in 2011 to 77.2 percent this year – although that’s still higher than any of its competitors. Moody’s also boosted its share of business loan ABS ratings, a large number of which are vehicle dealer floorplan transactions. Credit card ABS have made...[Includes two data charts] Read More

Bank of America Moves 38k Countrywide Mortgages To Subservicers, More Aggressive Loss Mit Expected

Bank of America appears to be moving slower than some industry analysts had expected in fulfilling some of its obligations under the proposed $8.5 billion settlement over Countrywide MBS reached last year with Bank of New York Mellon as trustee for a group of institutional investors. Although the settlement is far from finalized, BofA said it would move distressed loans to subservicers regardless of the outcome. The bank has moved approximately 38,000 mortgages to Specialized Loan Servicing, Select Portfolio Servicing and Green Tree, as of June 26, 2012, according to analysts at Barclays. Of this amount, 73 percent were shipped to SLS, SPS got 21 percent, and Green Tree received 6 percent. “Of the 38,000 loans, mortgage servicing rights have been transferred... Read More

Non-Agency Servicer Stop Advance Rates Higher Than Expected, Data on Neg Am Rates Available

Stop advance rates by servicers of non-agency MBS are more than double industry estimates, based on new data from CoreLogic’s LoanPerformance. Analysts at Barclays Capital said the data also allow calculation of loan-level stop advance rates on non-amortizing loans for the first time. LoanPerformance recently started reporting loan-level stop advance data on approximately 700 non-agency MBS, about 13.0 percent of active deals, according to Barclays. While CoreLogic said the trustee-submitted data will be reported without reference to the specific servicer, Barclays determined that the data are primarily limited to deals by Countrywide Financial and Washington Mutual. Stop advance rates in recent months on the Countrywide-serviced deals range... Read More

Senate Securities Subcommittee Chair Wants to Know ‘Who’s in Charge’ of Tri-Party Repo Market Oversight

The top priority in any effort to revamp, reform or otherwise reduce risk in the $1.8 trillion tri-party repurchase or repo market should be to clearly determine “who’s in charge from a federal perspective,” according to a top Senate Democrat. In holding this week’s hearing of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment, Chairman Jack Reed, D-RI, said the government needs to defuse potential risk to the tri-party repo credit market for funding as an act of emergency preparedness rather than allow another financial crisis, such as what crippled the market in 2008. “One of the lessons we learned... Read More

Latest Imf News

More Imf News

Featured Data

More Featured Data

Featured Reports

More Latest Reports

Featured Poll

As homeowner equity continues to build, more and more lenders are launching home equity lending products. Are you thinking of joining this market?

View Results