New production of non-agency MBS continued to barrel along at a heady pace during the first quarter of 2005, with issuance hitting $243.47 billion, according to a new market analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Although that total was down 2.1 percent from the previous quarter, it still marked the third highest three-month production volume ever for the non-agency MBS market. The record, $251.31 billion, was set back in the third quarter of…
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Analysts and backers of the government-sponsored enterprises will be looking closely at language that GOP leaders in the House and Senate are expected to craft as part of reform legislation that could significantly curtail Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s MBS investment activities. It’s clear that the Bush administration wants Congress to provide a new GSE regulator with some guidance in this direction, after Treasury Secretary John Snow and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary…
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The first quarter of 2005 was not a good time to be holding large amounts of government-sponsored enterprise stock as investors collectively watched the value of their Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock plunge a huge $23.05 billion. While some of the decline was triggered by a congressional move to substantially toughen the government’s oversight and regulation of the GSEs, a lot of the drop was triggered to growing revelations of more accounting problems …
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Spurred on by a desire to invest a growing amount of U.S. dollars in fixed-income investments, foreign buying of mortgage backed securities is apparently growing at a very brisk pace in 2005. According to new estimates compiled by Credit Suisse First Boston, overseas purchases of U.S. MBS soared to over $80 billion during the first quarter of this year. That represented the highest level of buying seen since at least 2000 and possibly the highest…
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Securitization trustees are struggling to re-define their role in a market where investors are clamoring for them to do more work for less money and new disclosure regulations could significantly increase their compliance burden. That was the message delivered to participants at the recent Housing Finance Summit, in Jacksonville, FL, sponsored by Opal Financial Group. Several observers noted an increasing complexity in structured finance deals – particularly in the MBS market, where derivatives are…
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A key Senate lawmaker says he’s open to including language that would clear the way for an MBS program for the Federal Home Loan Banks in a pending GSE reform bill. But the FHLBanks themselves appear split on the issue. In remarks after a hearing on the mission of the FHLBanks last week, Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-AL, told reporters that he believes that allowing the FHLBanks to…
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Should the rating agencies cut credit enhancement levels for issuers that use automated valuation models backed by insurance on mortgages being securitized in the non-agency MBS market? Some vendors think so, but the rating agencies aren’t sure. So-called insured AVMs are one of the hottest – and most controversial – technology products on the mortgage landscape. Generally, such systems use statistical models and vast databases of property sales to estimate home values. The products…
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