Residential MBS production continued to gain speed in the second quarter of 2015 while non-mortgage securitization remained strong, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. A total of $419.42 billion of single-family MBS and non-mortgage ABS were issued during the second quarter, an increase of 21.2 percent from the first three months of the year. It was the strongest new issuance total since the third quarter of 2013 and marked the fifth straight quarterly increase since the market hit a cyclical low at the beginning of last year. Most of the gain came from the agency MBS sector, which totaled $352.73 billion in new issuance, a gain of 29.7 percent from the first quarter. All three agencies posted hefty gains, with the biggest coming at Ginnie Mae, where new issuance jumped 46.7 percent to hit $120.36 billion. A lot of Ginnie’s growth is coming from an unusual surge of refinance activity, which accounted for ... [ charts]
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Average MBS guaranty fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year were 7 basis points higher than in 2013, but the government-sponsored enterprises were less profitable last year, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The average MBS guaranty fee was 58 bps in 2014, the FHFA reported, up from 51 bps in 2013. Both components of the g-fee – the loan-level upfront fee (15 bps) and the ongoing annual fee (43 bps) were up from the year before. For several years, 15-year mortgages had been more profitable for the GSEs than 30-year loans, so the fee hike in December 2012 was designed to even them out by raising the fees more for 30-year loans. But instead of narrowing the gap, 30-year loans were even more unprofitable last year, the FHFA said in its annual report on g-fee pricing released this week. This biggest factor may have been self-inflicted as both GSEs ...
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A handful of former top executives in the mortgage departments of Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse have launched Shelter Growth Capital Partners and hope to eventually purchase and then securitize mostly residential loans that don’t meet parameters of the qualified mortgage test. According to marketing materials provided to select originators and then passed on to Inside MBS & ABS, the Shelter Growth (or SG Capital) conduit will focus mostly on A-minus quality loans. A preliminary loan menu distributed this spring states that SG will purchase 30-year mortgages with FICO scores as low as 620. Loan amounts will range from $150,000 to $1 million. It also will finance consumers who went through a foreclosure as recently as two years ago. The coupons on the offering grid range from 5.75 percent to 9.00 percent. According to the marketing materials, SG Capital requires that all the mortgages be ...
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An increase in short-term interest rates will have an outsized impact on commercial MBS among structured finance assets, according to Moody’s Investors Service. In a report released last week, the rating service said higher interest rates will be credit negative for existing deal performance and new issuance for commercial MBS and largely neutral for residential MBS and most ABS sectors. As interest rates rise, Moody’s said term default risk on loans backing new issue commercial MBS will increase because the loans’ debt service coverage ratios will be lower than the DSCRs at the time of origination of loans in outstanding deals. “Rates on loans backing new conduit deals will increase, thereby reducing DSCR in relation to a given property’s cash flow,” the rating service said. “New conduit deals are typically backed by loan pools that were originated no more than ...
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Clean-up calls executed by U.S. Bank on Ginnie Mae real estate mortgage investment conduits in recent years have caused problems for some investors, but industry analysts suggest that overall, the risk agency MBS investors face from clean-up calls is limited. Analysts at Performance Trust Capital Partners, an investing firm, warned recently that U.S. Bank has made about $53 million in profit the past three years by completing clean-up calls on Ginnie REMICs where the bank was the trustee. On Ginnie REMICs, trustees are allowed to complete clean-up calls when the outstanding balance on the security falls to less than 1.0 percent of the aggregate of the original class principal balance for the security. When executing a clean-up call, the trustee pays off the investors in the MBS at par. On Ginnie deals where U.S. Bank has completed clean-up calls, the REMICs have generally been trading at ...
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Single-family rental securitizations appear to be performing well, according to analysts at Morningstar Credit Ratings, with few signs of trouble on the horizon. “Vacancy rates generally remain low, cash flows remain sufficient to cover bond obligations, and … the recently released May property-level data for the single-borrower, single-family rental asset class shows performance in line with its recent history,” the rating service said in a new report. Overall, monthly retention rates remain in the mid-70s to low-80s. Also, “delinquency rates are slightly higher from their April levels but remain mostly low.” Lease expirations are generally rising across SFR securitizations, Morningstar said, but vacancy rates have remained relatively flat month-over-month. “Although delinquency rates rose slightly across most transactions, the number of tenants past due on their payments remains low,” the analysts said. Elsewhere, so far, ...
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The U.S. Conference of Mayors has joined a growing number of entities urging the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and certain major banks to stop selling distressed and nonperforming mortgages to Wall Street investors. Rather than sell pools of NPLs to private-equity firms, hedge funds and other speculators, sell them to qualified nonprofits for the purpose of saving homes from foreclosure and creating affordable housing, the group stated in a resolution co-sponsored by 17 mayors. The mayors point to a joint study issued recently by the Center for Popular Democracy and the ACCE Institute. The study said most NPL pools are auctioned off at steep discounts to hedge funds and private-equity firms. “Although Fannie and Freddie have been unwilling to offer principal reduction to struggling homeowners, they often offer steep discounts when they ...
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