Secondary markets

The commercial mortgage-backed security delinquency rate reached an all-time high in May at 10.04%, up 24 basis points from the prior month.

Allied Irish Bank has signed HML to offer the U.K.’s first 48-hour "hot" standby servicing arrangement for the issuer's £437.6 million ($683 million) securitization of U.K. mortgage assets.

Wall Street investors are demanding new data and analytics to evaluate existing and new MBS deals.

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.

The news that the Federal Housing Administration is going to rev up its pilot distressed asset sale program is just another indication that this market is ready to boom.

Recently announced prepayments pending on certain Freddie Mac securities stem from what the lender involved said is a resolved technical error that caused a buyback of $330 million in mostly current loans.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority on Tuesday fined Citigroup Global Markets Inc. $3.5 million in a settlement related to charges of nonconforming residential mortgage-backed securities violations that Citi neither admitted to nor denied.

Citigroup, a somewhat frequent seller of nonperforming loans, is in the market with a $99 million package of troubled residential mortgages, according to investors that have looked at the package.

Mortgage originations will fall to their lowest level in five years in 2012, according to the latest forecast by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Bank of America is in the market with a $2 billion package of mortgage servicing rights tied to loans that reside in private-label securitizations, according to bidders and investors briefed on the package.

Old Republic International Corp. has taken the next step in separating out its private mortgage insurance and consumer credit indemnity insurance units by selling 20.6% of Republic Financial Indemnity Group to an investor group headed by ORI president Christopher Nard.