MSR

Fund manager Varde Partners wants to grow its partnerships with lenders and servicers interested in selling off their excess mortgage servicing rights.

Intensifying margin pressure could spur another wave of cost-cutting at nonbank mortgage lenders, unless other strategies, like consolidation or a mortgage servicing book that could increase in value, offset it.

MountainView Financial Solutions is brokering a more than $3 billion package of Fannie Mae and government mortgage servicing rights originated primarily through third-party origination channels.

AmeriHome GMSR Issuer Trust, consists of $155 million of fixed-rate, five-year notes and $500 million of two-year variable funding notes; it is modeled on deals by PennyMac.

The company is marketing another $550 million of bonds backed by MSRs; proceeds will be used to repay the remaining $500 million of notes issued last year at wider spreads.

The deal is designed to improve capital ratios and reduce risk at the Seattle company.

Ginnie Mae is looking to start a pilot program to securitize digital mortgages as early as 2019, but issuers would not be able to commingle loans using traditional paper files in those deals.

Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in a race to offer services and technology that help mortgage bankers raise cash from mortgage servicing rights.

Freddie Mac has quietly started extending credit to nonbanks that issue mortgages, a move it says will help the companies maintain access to a crucial stockpile of cash if their home loans go sour.

Ocwen Financial Corp. got back in the black during the first quarter after selling New Residential Investment Corp. $110 million in economic rights to mortgage servicing.