Whole-loan trading is an increasingly important profitability tool for lenders in a market where soft production volume is squeezing margins, said industry officials during a panel session at the recent secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Loans tailored for Community Reinvestment Act needs, nonprime mortgages and arbitrage opportunities in agency loan-level pricing are hot products in the whole-loan market, officials said. Mason-McDuffie Mortgage ...

The purchase-mortgage share of jumbo originations increased in 2017 on an annual basis, according to an Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis of data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The loans accounted for 63.6 percent of the $317.29 billion of jumbos originated in 2017, up from a 53.5 percent share the previous year. The emphasis on purchase mortgages varied among the top jumbo lenders. Purchase loans accounted for 69.4 percent ... [Includes three data charts]

Ellington Financial wants to speed up its issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities but competition for non-qualified mortgages is getting in the way. Ellington issued its first MBS backed by non-QMs in November. All of the mortgages in the $141.2 million deal were originated by LendSure. Ellington has an equity investment in the lender. Laurence Penn, president and CEO of Ellington, said the firm is preparing to issue another non-agency MBS and the nonbank would prefer to ...

More small banks can soon receive qualified-mortgage status for certain originations even if the loans would otherwise be non-QMs thanks to provisions in the Dodd-Frank reform legislation signed into law last week. The new type of QM will be available to banks and credit unions with less than $10.0 billion in total assets. Originations held in portfolio by such institutions will receive QM status if they meet a variety of standards. The exemption is already provided to depositories with ...

Issuers of non-agency mortgage-backed securities continued to bring a variety of deals in May. JPMorgan Chase and Redwood Trust are set to issue separate prime non-agency MBS and nonprime MBS is on the way from Deephaven Mortgage and Lone Star Funds. Both Chase and Redwood continue to include mortgages eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises in their issuance. Such loans will account for essentially half of the $650.5 million issuance ...

Mortgages for self-employed borrowers look to be an area of growth for non-agency lenders. Embrace Home Loans and Truss Financial Group introduced separate products for self-employed borrowers recently. Embrace said its “beyond” products will provide finance to borrowers that other lenders have denied. “Beyond is our program that offers financing solutions for borrowers who don’t easily fit into the guidelines for conventional mortgages,” the lender said. “They call it ...

The Structured Finance Industry Group is developing best practices for servicing fees that are passed through to non-agency mortgage-backed securities. As part of the effort, the industry group is seeking examples of servicing fees that have been disputed. The non-qualified mortgage share of originations by banks increased slightly in 2017, according to a survey by the American Bankers Association. Some 10.0 percent of bank originations in 2017 ... [Includes five briefs]

Production of non-agency jumbo mortgages declined significantly in the first quarter of 2018, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. An estimated $60.0 billion of jumbos were originated in the first quarter, down 26.8 percent from the previous period. Jumbo production was also off 13.0 percent from the first three months of 2017. The decline in jumbo volume was greater than the slowdown in the overall mortgage ... [Includes one data chart]

Mortgage-backed security investors remain interested in non-qualified mortgages, though the hot market may be cooling off. A particularly large non-QM MBS from an affiliate of Western Asset Management Company was delayed in closing and downsized slightly as some firms suggest that returns in the market slipped in the first quarter. WAMC’s Arroyo Mortgage Trust 2018-1 was initially sized at $1.25 billion, according to presale reports published near the end of April by ...

Redwood Trust boosted its net income in the first quarter of 2018 and continued to increase its originations of expanded-credit mortgages. The real estate investment trust is seeing strong demand for the loans in the secondary market and Redwood is set to issue its largest expanded-credit mortgage-backed security to date. Redwood had $46.9 million in net income in the quarter, up 51.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2017 and up 26.7 percent from a year ago. The company sold ...