The rating service made a couple of issuer-friendly tweaks to its MBS loss model criteria proposed in June. The rating service, for the first time, will con-sider catastrophic risk when assessing loans.

Several real estate investment trusts, including MFA Financial and Starwood Property Trust, are expanding their portfolio of non-qualified mortgages. The loans provide attractive returns, whether retained or bundled into an MBS.

Annaly and Chimera are generating strong returns aggregating mortgages, issuing non-agency MBS and retaining subordinate tranches from the deals. Chimera plans to be a regular issuer of non-agency MBS with GSE-eligible loans.

Credit Suisse jumps into the non-QM MBS market, tapping a lender that previously contributed to MBS from Western Asset Management Company. JPMorgan Chase and PIMCO separately brought innovative deals.

Quicken increased its contributions to prime non-agency MBS this year, including $619 million of loans going into deals issued in the second quarter. Characteristics of the deals were largely unchanged.

Moody's proposes a new way of treating private MI for loans included in non-agency MBS; Angel Oak launches a pre-qualification tool; Sachem's earnings down in 2Q; more

The proposal to end the qualified mortgage patch available to loans eligible for sale to the GSEs could boost non-agency mortgage activity, though the devil is in the details as the plan plays out leading to early 2021.

Participants in the non-agency market are looking forward to expiration of the QM patch. However, industry groups and consumer advocates want the patch to be kept intact.

Redwood’s margins from non-agency mortgage activity declined in the second quarter and aren’t expected to increase much for the rest of the year, according to officials at the REIT. Redwood also has changed its MBS issuance strategy, putting seasoned mortgages into deals.