The largest servicers participating in the non-agency portion of the Home Affordable Modification Program will be required to offer streamlined HAMP mods beginning in 2016, according to a directive from the Treasury Department. The Streamline HAMP offering will allow borrowers to qualify for mods without full completion of a HAMP application, without income verification and without the front-end debt-to-income ratio limit of 31 percent for typical HAMP mods ...

Fitch Ratings updated its criteria for estimating losses on mortgages in non-agency mortgage-backed securities this week. The main change for jumbo MBS involves the treatment of retail originations by lenders that have not been reviewed by Fitch. Previously, retail originations from such lenders would not receive positive consideration in the calculation for the probability of default. The rating service will now apply the retail benefit to ... [Includes three briefs]

Angel Oak Home Loans is still contemplating issuing a security backed by non-agency, non-prime mortgages, but the company’s original self-imposed deadline of July is not going to happen, according to officials familiar with the Atlanta-based originator. As reported by Inside MBS & ABS last month, Angel Oak had been shopping around a roughly $100 million package of nonprime whole loans to several investors. It’s unclear whether any of the portfolio traded. The fact that the lender had been trying...

Banks with significant portfolio capacity continue to stock up on mortgages because they offer strong returns and can help efforts to cross-sell other products. While most of the mortgages being added to portfolios are jumbos, in some instances banks are retaining conventional mortgages. JPMorgan Chase reported that it added mortgages with a balance of $19.0 billion to its portfolio holdings during the second quarter of 2015. Marianne Lake, chief financial officer at the bank ...

Two nonbanks, led by New Penn Financial, were able to outpace First Republic Bank in contributing to jumbo mortgage-backed securities issued in the second quarter of 2015, according to a ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. New Penn was identified as contributing $145.80 million to the $3.11 billion in jumbo MBS issued during the second quarter. Quicken Loans followed with $139.43 million in contributions. First Republic Bank ... [Includes two data charts]

United Wholesale Mortgage announced this week that it’s offering interest-only mortgages, joining a growing number of banks and nonbanks originating the loans that don’t meet standards for qualified mortgages. Officials at United Wholesale noted a distinction in the lender’s IO product: “Large banking institutions have widely offered this option, but mostly restricted its availability to jumbo borrowers,” United Wholesale said. The lender is offering IOs with ...

Investors interested in the jumbo mortgage-backed security from JPMorgan Chase that’s set to be issued next week received new disclosures with sometimes confusing information thanks to a rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission. JPMorgan Mortgage Trust 2015-4 will have a balance of $388.34 million, according to presale reports published last week by Kroll Bond Rating Agency and Moody’s Investors Service. A week before the presale reports ...

Industry participants largely support a plan from the Federal Housing Finance Agency for adjustments to the conforming loan limit. The $417,000 loan limit applicable to the government-sponsored enterprises could be increased as soon as January, depending on house-price appreciation trends over the next few months. The FHFA’s proposal said the regulator planned to use the “expanded data” house price index that the agency has published since 2011 to ...

Hatteras Financial has ramped up its efforts to acquire jumbo mortgages and plans to issue a jumbo mortgage-backed security before the end of the year, according to officials at the real estate investment trust. “Our portfolio plus commitments of jumbo [adjustable-rate mortgages] today is estimated to be about $258 million, so we’re making progress and nearing scale where we can consider securitization,” Benjamin Hough, Hatteras’ president and COO, said this week ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering revising income documentation standards to help borrowers that have nontraditional sources of income, according to Richard Cordray, the director of the agency. At a hearing last week by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA, raised concerns about the income documentation standards included in Appendix Q of the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule. Non-agency lenders ...