Originations of non-agency jumbo mortgages increased by 19.4 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year, according to affiliated publication Inside Mortgage Finance. The sector is expected to continue to grow as jumbos are increasingly attractive for bank portfolios and securitization. An estimated $203.0 billion in non-agency jumbo mortgages were originated in 2012, marking the third straight year of increased production. The sector is driven by big banks ... [Includes one data chart]

Five years after the subprime mortgage industry imploded, there are signs of a revival as new players are entering the nonprime space. What’s developing is “old style” home-equity lending, where loan-to-value ratios are rarely larger than 75 percent and the actual funder of the loan keeps the paper in portfolio and services it. In the past two weeks, two subprime residential firms opened their doors for business: Citadel Loan Servicing and Deephaven Mortgage. Deephaven is the brainchild of ...

Credit Suisse issued a $422.2 million non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security last week with some of the loans in the private placement sourced from Two Harbors Investment. Two Harbors – a real estate investment trust that has been working to issue its own non-agency MBS for more than a year – is also expected to be the initial investor in the subordinate tranche of the MBS. CSMC Trust 2013-TH1 received AAA ratings from DBRS, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s, with 7.05 percent credit enhancement ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will make a number of efforts to increase the market share for the non-agency market in 2013, according to Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. In a speech this week, he said guaranty fees on agency mortgages will continue to increase, the government-sponsored enterprises will complete significant risk-sharing transactions, and they will continue to work on a securitization platform and contractual frameworks that could be used for ...

Conforming loan limits should be lowered to help draw private capital into the mortgage market, according to recommendations from a bipartisan think tank led by former policymakers. The Bipartisan Policy Center recommended phasing out the government-sponsored enterprises and replacing them with a new “Public Guarantor” that would shift mortgage finance risk to the private sector. “A gradual reduction of the loan limits for government-guaranteed mortgages would help to rebalance the ...

Ocwen Financial has focused somewhat on performing prime mortgages as it has expanded its servicing portfolio recently, but officials at the special servicer said nonprime mortgages account for the majority of Ocwen’s planned acquisitions. Ocwen handled a $122.19 billion portfolio (excluding subservicing) at the end of 2012, according to affiliated publication Inside Mortgage Finance, including $87.23 billion in subprime mortgages. The servicer acquired $57.42 billion in agency mortgage servicing ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been content to let their significant holdings of non-agency mortgage-backed securities run off in recent years as opposed to selling the investments at a loss. However, the government-sponsored enterprises will likely have to sell some of their vintage non-agency MBS due to a mandate from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. A set of goals for the GSEs in 2013 released this week by the FHFA includes reducing the GSEs’ retained portfolio balances by selling 5 percent of the assets ...

Lending groups are urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to broaden classifications of “qualified mortgages” that it adopted in its final rule implementing ability-to-repay standards mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act. The Mortgage Bankers Association said the interest-rate threshold for determining which loans are eligible for safe harbor provided to QM loans should be raised. The CFPB rule generally allows QM status for loans with annual percentage rates up to 1.5 percentage points higher than ...

AIG announced this week that it launched a new unit to purchase whole loans as long-term investments, with AIG managing the servicing. The new Connective Mortgage Advisory Company recently facilitated AIG’s first correspondent mortgage purchase with AIG’s mortgage insurance subsidiary United Guaranty helping to identify and buy the whole loans. “Direct investment in residential mortgage loans offers attractive investment returns and enables a proactive approach to managing ... [Includes two briefs]

The reverse mortgage lending industry has asked Senate lawmakers to expand the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s authority to strengthen its oversight of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program. Testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs recently, Peter Bell, president of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association, said it is crucial for HUD to be able to act swiftly to reduce the risk the program poses to the FHA insurance fund. Bell said HUD needs to implement changes “in a matter of months, not years” and for that to happen, it would need authority from Congress to ...