The outlook for publicly traded real estate investment trusts that invest in agency MBS and related products is starting to improve, in part, because competing investments are looking ugly. That might seem like a small consolation prize for REITs, but several are posting decent earnings, even though the book value of their common stock is relatively weak. Meanwhile, while certain investors shun their stocks, many companies have engaged...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency released guidance in late January on how the Federal Home Loan Banks should classify investment securities. In doing so, it adopted the 2013 Uniform Agreement for FHLBank supervisory purposes. Where FHFA’s rule and guidance and the 2013 Uniform Agreement may conflict, the FHFA said its rules and guidance will apply. The directive states that FHLBanks should use “sound and conservative assumptions” as they pertain to upgrades and it provides classification approach examples and boundaries. For example, when a bank is considering whether to upgrade a classified security to “pass,” it should base its assessment on assumptions that minimize the likelihood that the FHLBank would need to classify the security again in the future.

Redwood Trust, which pioneered the revival of the jumbo MBS market a few years back, this month officially exited the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac correspondent-purchase business, dismantling the effort and trimming the size of its Denver office. The real estate investment trust had entered the government-sponsored enterprise market two years ago, after obtaining agency approvals at the end of 2013. It quickly built a network of several dozen lenders that sold whole loans to Redwood, which pooled them in GSE MBS. But sources familiar with the effort told...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s recent final rule limiting membership in the Federal Home Loan Bank system will reduce funding for originations of non-qualified mortgages and other non-agency activity, according to industry analysts. In recent years, many real estate investment trusts gained access to FHLBank advances via captive insurance companies. A final rule from the FHFA this month closed that so-called loophole, with the regulator claiming that Congress didn’t ...

A battle on the legislative or even legal front may be brewing that challenges the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s recent decision to exclude certain types of insurance companies from membership in the Federal Home Loan Bank system. The biggest impact of the final rule would be to force a number of real estate investment trusts that have formed captives to gain access to the FHLBanks to give up low-cost FHLBank advances. “The impact on mortgage liquidity and credit access should be...

Goldman Sachs last week announced it has agreed to a $5.1 billion settlement, the largest regulatory penalty in the firm’s history, concluding an investigation brought by the Residential MBS Working Group of the U.S. Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. The agreement in principle is poised to resolve actual and potential civil claims by the U.S. Department of Justice, the New York and Illinois attorneys general, the National Credit Union Administration (as conservator for several failed credit unions) and the Federal Home Loan Banks of Chicago and Seattle. At issue are...

The final rule issued last week banning captive insurance companies from joining the Federal Home Loan Banks ruffled feathers in the mortgage industry and has some pointing to Congress for future guidance on the issue. FHLBank members that joined the system by way of their captive insurers before the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s proposed rule issued in September 2014 have five years to relinquish their membership. Many are real estate investment trusts that would otherwise be ineligible for membership if it weren’t for finding a loophole in the system. Captive insurance members that obtained membership after the FHFA announced the proposed rule have a year to exit the system and unwind their advances.

FHFA FHLB Classification Guidance. The Federal Housing Finance Agency put out guidance this week on the classification of investment securities at the Federal Home Loan Banks. It is adopting the 2013 Uniform Agreement for FHLBank supervisory purposes. Where FHFA’s rule and guidance and the 2013 Uniform Agreement may conflict, the FHFA said its rules and guidance will apply. The agreement included FHLBanks using sound and conservative assumptions as they pertain to upgrades and it provides classification approach examples that provide boundaries for upgrading classified securities. Freddie Prices $1 Billion STACR Offering. As the first out of eight Structured Agency Credit Risk offerings planned through October 2016, Freddie Mac...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency published a final rule this week that will prevent real estate investment trusts from gaining access to financing from the Federal Home Loan Bank system via captive insurance companies. REITs are not allowed direct membership in an FHLBank. However, in recent years a number of REITs have formed captive insurance companies that were granted FHLBank membership because insurance companies were allowed to ...

Officials at the Federal Housing Finance Agency provided some advice to real estate investment trusts along with the announcement this week that REITs will lose their access to funding from Federal Home Loan Banks: ask Congress to make some changes. “Congress has amended the Federal Home Loan Bank Act in the past to allow additional entities to become members of a Federal Home Loan Bank and it can certainly do so again if it wants some of these entities to ...