Securitization

CIT Group has completed and executed a service agreement with the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) to service $7.4 billion of its portfolio of government-guaranteed student loans now serviced by CIT.

Credit card ABS collateral performance measures started the new year with continued across-the-board performance improvements as shown by the latest index results from Fitch Ratings.

While much of the next Congress will focus on making changes to the Dodd-Frank Act, lawmakers are also likely to deal with problems in mortgage servicing.

After months of silence, the Obama administration is close to spilling the best-kept secret in town: what it wants to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

While there are likely to be more settlements between the GSEs and mortgage lenders, a report from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) said the price of a settlement "might be too high for some originators who believe that their underwriting standards were strong."

As the economy brightens and capital issues resolve, one question is whether banks will now step out of the shadow of the so-called shadow banking system.

Eversheds has appointed structured finance and derivatives lawyer Kingsley Ong as partner in its Hong Kong banking and finance team.

The five largest servicers of residential mortgages — including Bank of America and Wells Fargo — may be the first to settle with 50 state attorneys general who are investigating foreclosure practices, according to combined press reports.

It is now clear that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are willing to make peace with banks by settling mortgage repurchase claims for some cash.

Janney Capital Markets named Noam Saxonhouse as director in real estate investment banking.

The multifamily REIT sector is now in a period of sustained improvement in terms of its fundamentals, said Moody's Investors Service in a new report released today.

The housing overhang, according to Amherst Securities Group (ASG) analysts in a report released today, is not only caused by the number of nonperforming loans currently in the market.

Sallie Mae has closed its deal to buy $27 billion of securitized federal student loans and related assets from Student Loan Corp. (SLC), which is majority-owned by Citibank.

November was the best month of 2010 so far for the nation's private mortgage insurers in terms of new insurance written (NIW), while it was the second best for new applications.

Real estate services and investment firm Grubb & Ellis Co. has predicted a slow recovery in the leasing market for all property types in the coming year.

Moody's Investors Service late last week downgraded $729 million of payment option ARM securities issued by Washington Mutual, Seattle, which is now the property of JPMorgan Chase.The collateral backing the securities includes first-lien, adjustable-rate, negative amortization mortgages.

Bank of America on Monday morning agreed to pay $2.8 billion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to resolve outstanding repurchase requests on loans Countrywide Financial Corp. sold to the GSEs.

Though the Basel II process to write new international capital standards lingered for nearly a decade, its successor has come a remarkably long way in just the past year.

Heading into 2011, several Wall Street firms favor an overweight to the mortgage basis. Valuations are expected to be attractive given the muted prepayments and generally favorable supply/demand technicals.

While not quite the same as the agonies of 2007 and 2008, 2010 was another calamitous year for the mortgage and MBS markets. Here are my expectations on a variety of topics for 2011.