With fears that too few qualified residential mortgages will be originated to support a strong securitization market, the American Securitization Forum proposed that mortgage-backed securities should be allowed to include a blend of QRMs and non-QRMs. MBS issuers also called for loosened underwriting requirements for certain non-QRMs.The proposal was included in the ASF’s comment letter to federal regulators regarding proposed risk-retention rules. Comments were initially due last week but federal regulators recently extended...
Ginnie Mae has raised the servicing fee compensation for its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage-Backed Securities (HMBS) program. Currently issuers receive either a flat 6-to-75 basis points monthly servicing fee or a 25-75 bps servicing fee based on a portion of the mortgage interest rate. Effective for HMBS with an issue date on or after July 1, 2011, issuers must select a servicing fee margin of at least 36 bps and not exceeding ...
The federal government will likely turn a profit on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS purchased by the Treasury Department in the wake of the collapse of the two government-sponsored enterprises in September 2008. Treasury said it received an additional $12.9 billion during the month of May in proceeds from its agency MBS investment, through sales with a market value of $10.5 billion ($10.0 billion principal value) and principal and interest payments of $2.4 billion. Through the end of May 2011, taxpayers have received...
The increasing return of private capital to the mortgage market that is expected to materialize post Dodd-Frank will provide plenty of opportunity for mortgage real estate investment trusts, with those investing in agency MBS likely to face a particularly low-risk environment, some leading financial services analysts suggest. gWe believe that the increased privatization of the mortgage market combined with the risk retention requirements of the equalified residential mortgagef will create...
Rating agency DBRS has clarified its position on several key provisions following a review of market comments on its exposure draft on third-party due diligence criteria for U.S. residential MBS. Not all firms can produce 36 months of payment history on seasoned home loans, particularly with respect to recently purchased home loans. Hence, verification of the pay histories of loans seasoned more than 18 months up to less than 36 months will be allowed...
New issuance in the agency MBS market declined again in May, falling to the lowest monthly production level since the depths of the global liquidity crisis over two years ago. According to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Gin-nie Mae issued a combined total of $71.05 billion of new single-family MBS last month, a decline of 7.7 percent from April’s production. May marked the fifth consecutive decline in monthly agency MBS volume since last year’s refinance boom peaked in December. It was also the lowest monthly production level since... [Includes one data chart]
Mortgage investors are calling on federal policymakers to bring more transparency into the securitization process along with a host of other best practices in order to attract sorely needed private capital back into the mortgage marketplace. “Today, mortgage investors face enormous challenges in the capital markets due to opacity, an asymmetry of information, poor underwriting, conflicts-of-interests among key parties in the securitization process, as well as the inability to enforce...
Statutes of limitation will soon force undecided non-agency mortgage-backed security investors into action, according to industry attorneys. Josh Silverman, counsel at Pomerantz Haudek Grossman & Gross, noted that many investors will lose buyback claims if they do not act shortly. In May, Option One Mortgage was the latest non-agency MBS issuer to be hit with repurchase requests. A group of investor clients organized by Talcott Franklin claimed that Option One improperly...
Two Harbors Investment Corp. announced last week that it has taken its first steps toward setting up a securitization issuance program, with a goal to issue a $250 million jumbo non-agency MBS sometime in 2011. The New York-based real estate investment trust will partner with Barclays Capital to close on a $100 million mortgage loan warehouse facility, which is subject to future increases. Two Harbors will buy prime, fixed-rate jumbo residential mortgages and aggregate them in the facility. It is currently targeting a $250 million deal size for the initial securitization. Barclays will act as underwriter, according to Two Harbors. The program is aimed at...
The legacy of toxic subprime and Alt A MBS from Countrywide Financial continued to spread last week, with a California appeals court deciding to allow a class action involving a number of pension funds and other institutional investors against the lender to proceed. The plaintiffs allege that Countrywide and a number of its subsidiaries, officers and U.S. investment banks violated the Securities Act of 1933 by making materially false and misleading statements in over 450 prospectus supplements relating to the issuance of more than $300 billion in subprime and Alt A securities. Specifically, plaintiffs allege the defendants misrepresented the quality of...
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