Participants in Ginnie Mae’s single-family mortgage-backed securities program may expect new policy changes, including servicer and credit ratings for the largest issuers, clarification of “appropriate sources of liquidity” and other financial requirements. The changes come as issuer liquidity continues to be a primary concern for Ginnie Mae, particularly with nonbanks now the dominant segment in the single-family MBS program. “We’re working on those policies right now,” said Leslie Meaux Pordzik, Ginnie’s acting senior vice president, Office of Issuer and Portfolio Management, at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in Washington, DC, this week. Nonbanks account for nearly two-thirds of Ginnie MBS issuance and approximately 75 percent of FHA and VA lending. Nonbanks serviced a record 61.1 percent of outstanding Ginnie single-family MBS at the end of the ...

Ginnie Mae has made considerable progress in dealing with rapid prepayments on VA loans but prepayment speeds on Ginnie mortgage-backed securities in general continue to annoy investors. Prepay speeds on Ginnie MBS are now at the lowest since 2014 but it is not enough for agency Executive Vice President Maren Kasper to feel confident as she addressed the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association this week. “Our prepayment issue is not solved,” said Kasper, as she spoke on a panel with representatives of government-lending programs. The agency continues to hear from investors about the problem, she said. Kasper cited two instances where Ginnie officials were summoned to meetings in China and New York to explain the prepayments to irate investors. They threatened to stop purchasing Ginnie bonds, she said. Kasper declined to say how bad the ...

Securitization of re-performing loans has seen a significant uptick since more borrowers moved from nonperforming to re-performing status as a result of modifications and other loss-mitigation techniques, according to an analysis by DBRS.

Ginnie Mae issuance of single-family mortgage-backed securities rode a homebuying wave during the third quarter of 2018, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending ranking and analysis. Ginnie issuers produced $105.63 billion of new MBS backed by forward mortgages during the July-September cycle, a 7.1 percent increase from the second quarter. That brought year-to-date production to $296.88 billion – down 11.3 percent from the first nine months of 2017. Purchase mortgages provided the boost for the Ginnie market. Some $75.69 billion of FHA and VA purchase mortgages were pooled in Ginnie MBS in the third quarter, a sturdy 13.1 percent increase from the previous period. Purchase loans accounted for 75.1 percent of FHA and VA loans securitized in the third quarter, compared to 64.7 percent for all of last year. Although production of these loans has gone up since the first quarter, year-to-date volume ... [Charts]

The mortgage banking industry is optimistic about Congress enacting legislation that would cure VA orphan loans before the midterm elections. The U.S. Senate still has time to consider H.R. 6737, the Protect Affordable Mortgages for Veterans Act, according to Bill Kilmer, chief lobbyist at the Mortgage Bankers Association. “Most observers think [lawmakers are] going to be around until Oct. 18 or 19, which is when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he wants to keep folks around to work on nominations and other measures they need to clear,” Kilmer said. “There is time and, more to the substantive point, the bill passed the House.” H.R. 6737 would provide a technical fix so that certain VA refinance loans would be eligible for pooling in a Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed security. The bill was reported out of committee by a unanimous 49-0 vote, and was approved quickly by the House ...

FHA Issues Waiver of Property Inspections in Disaster-Stricken California Counties. FHA has issued a waiver of its timing policy for completing property inspections prior to closing or endorsing a loan for FHA insurance. The waiver is in effect in presidentially declared major disaster areas in Lake and Shasta Counties, CA, that were ravaged by wildfires and high winds. FHA believes that the wildfires and high winds have stabilized so as not to cause any further damage to properties, even though FEMA has not declared “all clear” in the affected areas. The waiver allows damage inspections to be completed after Oct. 2, for properties located in the PDMDA. NC Commissioner of Banks Amends State Reverse Mortgage Rules. The North Carolina Commissioner of Banks recently amended its ...

Ongoing challenges in the retail sector are raising questions about the credit implications for some structured finance collateral, though the negative effects on the commercial MBS market appear to be limited due to a strong economy, according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service. The disruption in the U.S. retail sector has been caused by the growth of online shopping, cutthroat competition, over-expansion and inability to adapt to changing consumer demands, the report indicated ...

Securitizations of residential property assessed clean energy assessments are performing better than projections made by Kroll Bond Rating Agency when issuance started four years ago, according to the rating service. Meanwhile, predicting prepayment rates remains difficult, KBRA noted in a report released late last week.

The Blackstone Group in the past few months has taken a hard look at the operations of Incenter, a portfolio company it controls that has diversified businesses that include loan and MBS trading/investments as well as servicing brokerage, according to market sources familiar with the situation.

Ginnie Mae issuers produced $36.68 billion of new single-family mortgage-backed securities last month, a modest 5.0 percent gain from July, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis and ranking. Through the first eight months of the year, Ginnie issuance was down 11.0 percent from the same period in 2017. The MBS figures do not include FHA home-equity conversion mortgages, and loan amounts are truncated to the lowest $1,000. Purchase mortgages accounted for 75.6 percent of new issuance in August, although volume was up just 1.9 percent from July’s level. On a year-to-date basis, the purchase-mortgage share rose from 65.7 percent in 2017 to 70.0 percent for the first eight months of this year. Total volume, however, was down 5.1 percent. The refinance market has been more wobbly. As of the end of August, refi volume totaled $65.87 billion, down 26.2 percent from the ... [Chart]