Secondary

Two recent and largely unrelated developments have renewed attention to two recurring post-downturn themes that persist even though the bubble’s bursting is receding further into the rear-view mirror, namely: The potential for heightened buyback sensitivities and for covered bonds to make more inroads domestically.

The nation’s megabanks are continuing to sit on their nonperforming residential loans, although some are currently out in the market with mid-sized packages.

A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission no-action letter issued in response to a Royal Bank of Canada request among other things opens the door for U.S. dollar-denominated covered bonds’ inclusion in indices investors use to track returns, according to Fitch.

The latest sale includes $1.6 billion of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) tied to home loans known as ‘Duke Funding High Grade I Ltd.’

In a recent presentation to investors Fortress Investment Group estimated that $4 trillion in mortgage servicing rights may change hands over the next few years, but MSR investors and others say that estimate is much too high.

The Federal Home Loan Banks stopped purchasing private-label MBS in 2008, but losses on those bad investments have been a major drag on earnings ever since. But that may be changing.

A pair of nonlisted real estate investment trusts with the same dealer/manager have modified their share repurchase programs to increase stockholder liquidity.

New regulations have, and are expected to continue to impact the commercial real estate mortgage servicing industry, while process redesign and technology implementations are helping organizations improve efficiency, expand offerings and in many cases, retain staff.

American Capital Mortgage Investment Corp., Bethesda, Md., has priced a public offering of 11 million shares of common stock for total expected gross proceeds of $253 million before expenses.

Just days after predicting that this year’s mortgage originations would fall to their lowest level in volume since 2007, the Mortgage Bankers Association is changing its tune—singing at a higher note.