SFR transactions are expected to increase as investors rely more on leverage…

Issuers of commercial MBS are facing significant problems with risk-retention requirements five months after the rule took effect, according to an industry attorney. Industry participants continue to push for guidance from federal regulators, but the response so far has been limited. “The rule is woefully inadequate as a guidebook for compliance, with massive white space, periodically interrupted by obscure bubbles of facial clarity,” according to Rick Jones, a partner at the Dechert law firm. “Unclear rules and potentially existential liability are not the stuff of a deal easily made.” In a recent commentary, Jones said...

Citadel’s small-balance commercial program will include mixed-use retail and other loan types.

Real estate investment trusts that focus on the MBS market recorded a modest increase in their MBS holdings during the first quarter of 2017, according to an Inside MBS & ABS analysis. And observers say a pending change in how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac structure their credit-risk transfer programs may boost REIT participation further. The 15 mortgage REITs tracked by Inside MBS & ABS reported a combined $230.82 billion of MBS investment at the end of March, including assets held in the to-be-announced market. That was up 1.6 percent from the end of 2016, though it was still off from year-ago levels. Some 91.8 percent of REIT MBS holdings are...[Includes one data table]

President Trump’s tax plan would raise the federal debt, but could benefit residential MBS, consumer ABS and asset-backed commercial paper, depending mostly on the effect on the underlying obligors’ after-tax income, according to a recent research report from Moody’s Investors Service. “The administration’s blueprint proposes a reduction in the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent, which would also apply to partnerships and other ‘pass-through’ businesses that are currently taxed through their principals’ individual returns,” analysts explained. The White House plan also features...

The Securities and Exchange Commission this week charged two former head traders who ran the commercial MBS desk at Nomura Securities International with lying intentionally to customers to boost the profits of the firm as well as their commissions. The SEC complaint alleged that traders James Im and Kee Chan inflated the price on CMBS they bought and sold for customers on the secondary market. In certain instances, the two traders allegedly pretended they were negotiating bond purchases with a third-party seller at a higher price when Nomura had already purchased the bonds at a lower price. According to the SEC, the fraud generated...

In other words, Ocwen should have told shareholders that there was an MOU with the MMC.

Although it lost money on an accounting basis, its funds from operations, or FFO, came in at $78.2 million compared to $64.3 million for 1Q16.

The securitization of income-property mortgages nosedived in the first quarter of 2017, with most of the downturn in the volatile non-agency sector, according to an Inside MBS & ABS analysis. A total of $48.29 billion of MBS backed by commercial properties was issued in the first quarter, down 27.7 percent from the previous period. Although production was down 6.1 percent from the same period in 2016, it was close to the average quarterly volume of $49.35 billion that the market has produced since the beginning of 2014. The average for the 2011-2013 period was just $32.00 billion. Average volume is...[Includes one data table]

Some of the slowdown in non-agency CMBS is likely due to lingering uncertainty about risk-retention requirements, which took effect at the end of 2016.