Home Equity Conversion Mortgage-backed securities (HMBS) issuance in August was well-above its year-ago level, but the month’s tally this year was dragged down by recent changes to the HECM program, according to the latest New View Advisors commentary on publicly available Ginnie Mae data.
HMBS issuers created $730 million in new HMBS pools during August, which New View notes is the lowest issuance since March, and also down from the $809 million issued in July. However, on a year-over-year basis, HMBS issuance in August was higher than August 2014’s $517 million total.
“FHA’s new Financial Assessment requirements for newly originated HECM loans are the main driver for the reduced loan volume, which has reduced HMBS issuance from a 2015 peak of $874 million in May,” writes New View Advisors in its commentary on the data.
In August, 94 pools were issued consisting of 50 original issuances and 44 tail pools. Tail issuances accounted for about $178 million, or 24%, of August’s total.
Original HMBS pools are created when a pool of FHA-insured HECMs is securitized for the first time, whereas tail HMBS issuances are HMBS pools created from Uncertificated Portions of HECMs that have already had their original HMBS issuance.
As of August, total outstanding HMBS is about $52.2 billion, up from just under $52 billion at the end of July.
“We estimate that this increase is composed of approximately $161 million in negative amortization, plus the $730 million in new issuance, minus about $681 million in payoffs,” writes New View Advisors.
New View notes that total outstanding HMBS has been increasing each month, though at an increasingly slower rate. For example, monthly increases in the past four months have been $409 million, $350 million, $283 million and $209 million in May, June, July and August, respectively.
“With payoff amounts increasing each month, total HMBS outstanding could shrink for the first time later this year,” writes New View.
Thus far in 2015, HMBS issuance is averaging just over $757 million per month, which New View notes is “well above” last year’s $550 million monthly average.
View the New View Advisors commentary.
Written by Jason Oliva
