Securitization

Bank of America is tapping the commercial mortgage-backed securities market to refinance the debt on its namesake Manhattan office building, providing BofA and building co-owner The Durst Company with a hefty cash-equity payout.

The Federal Reserve reduced short-term rates for the first time in years, and accelerated its plan to stop shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet by rolling maturing mortgage-backed securities into Treasuries.

Angel Oak Mortgage Trust 2019-4 involves 1,551 loans, according to ratings agency presale reports. Nearly 84% of the loans have borrowers who do not meet the CFPB’s qualified mortgage standard.

Removing Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages with natural-disaster forbearance from the agency's delinquency tracking database would give investors a less-distorted view of loan performance, according to the Community Home Lenders Association.

President Trump has signed the Protecting Affordable Mortgages for Veterans Act, which aims to address concerns that rules around certain VA refinances were impeding those loans' inclusion in secondary market pools.

The incentives are stronger than ever to work toward standardizing the documentation, language and process for loans in commercial mortgage-backed securities to be combined with PACE financing.

Jefferies is housing the initial round of $300 million in loans under a repurchase agreement with four lenders, as well as with the trust established for the transaction in Jefferies’ standing as the repo seller.

Verus Securitization Trust 2019-INV2 is backed by investor loans secured by 1,042 rental properties. The loans were originated by 76 different lenders.

Occidental Management is sponsoring a single-asset, single-borrower deal through JPMorgan backed by the fee simple interest from receivables of a lease-buyback arrangement with Sprint Corp.

A Nomura Holdings Inc. unit will repay customers about $25 million to settle U.S. regulators' allegations that it failed to supervise traders who made false statements in negotiating sales of mortgage securities.

Life insurance companies increased their mortgage investments to levels higher than historical norms, creating more potential danger for their portfolios in the event of a real estate downturn, a Fitch Ratings report said.

The more than $44 billion in new Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities that came to market in June marked the strongest month for the government bond insurer in more than two years.

Some commercial mortgage-backed securities due next year could have difficulty refinancing due to the recent Ridgecrest earthquake, according to a new Morningstar report.

Mortgages using alternative documentation like bank statements for underwriting performed stronger than expected, but uncertainty remains about their default rates in stressed environments, Fitch Ratings said.

Despite rising delinquency levels, borrower performance on the underlying mortgages in GSE credit-risk transfer securitizations is strong enough to warrant ratings upgrades to more than half of nearly 1,200 outstanding note classes.

Making low-balance loans with poor economies of scale is tough in a market with slim margins, but it could have its rewards.

The deal is backed by an underlying pool of 1,724 fixed-rate mortgages originated by Blackstone-owned Finance of America Mortgage.

The publicly traded real estate investment firm is backing the securitization via Citi with 156 properties in 28 states.

Because automated valuation models have not been subjected to a stressed housing market, their increased use holds negatives and positives for residential mortgage-backed securities credit quality, a Moody's report said.

Blackstone's real estate affiliate and property management firm SITE Centers Corp. acquired the 12 centers across seven states in 2014.