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Mortgage Loan Exchange Receives Investment from New Strategic Investor
- Monday, 27 May 2019
Maxex, a residential mortgage loan exchange, announced today the closing of a Series B investment round that was led by AGNC Ventures, an affiliate of AGNC Investment Corp. ("AGNC") and included the participation of Moore Asset Backed Fund, LP and other repeat institutional and private investors. AGNC is the largest internally-managed mortgage real estate investment trust and an active investor in residential mortgage assets.
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Thomas M. Pearce, Jr.,Chairman & CEO, MAXEX, LLC[/caption]
"I am thrilled to have AGNC's support of MAXEX. We know that AGNC will be a great partner and bring enormous value to our business," said Tom Pearce, CEO and chairman of MAXEX. "People are looking at what we're building and our value proposition. It's very simple. Buyers and sellers sign one standardized legal contract with MAXEX, and either sell loans to a broad universe of investors or buy loans from a broad universe of sellers all while trading with one counterparty – MAXEX."
To date, MAXEX has traded more than $3 billion of conforming and jumbo loans. Loans aggregated through its exchange have been securitized through 22 different private label mortgage backed securities transactions. With the AGNC investment, MAXEX has raised over $90 million in capital to date.
"We are pleased to support MAXEX for the next phase of its growth," said Sean Reid, senior vice president of Strategy and Corporate Development for AGNC. "MAXEX provides a valuable service to both buyers and sellers of residential whole loans through its exchange and central clearinghouse, in turn eliminating many of the traditional inefficiencies in the sector."
Premier buyers trading on the MAXEX platform include Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Principal Bank as well as J.P. Morgan, who has been a strategic commercial partner since 2017. The company has a pipeline of over 20 marquee buyers including insurance companies, bank portfolios, REITs and Wall Street dealers in the process of joining the platform.
"Given the prospects that GSE reform could meaningfully change the secondary market landscape, lenders are concerned that their current liquidity could be impacted," said Bill Decker, MAXEX's President. "MAXEX provides a turnkey solution for lenders to efficiently access many qualified buyers, which provides pricing stability and broad market access."
Former Federal Housing Commissioner and retired Mortgage Bankers Association CEO Dave Stevens recently called MAXEX "a really exciting platform that provides a consistent process to marry buyers and sellers of mortgages that eliminates the inconsistencies that have existed in the past. Common documentation combined with multiple investors bring both certainty and consistency to the market and will only improve liquidity to the housing finance system."
MAXEX is leveling the playing field for market participants, providing access to a diverse pool of large buyers for its over 85 approved bank and non-bank sellers. Buyers benefit from this substantial supply without traditional counterparty management challenges – from credit review, contracting issues, dispute resolution and other operational aspects of maintaining numerous counterparty relationships – as MAXEX intermediates all trades and serves as the buyers' sole counterparty.
MBA: April New Home Purchase Mortgage Applications Increased 15.6 Percent
- Thursday, 16 May 2019
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS) data for April 2019 shows mortgage applications for new home purchases increased 15.6 percent from a year ago. Compared to March 2019, applications increased by 3 percent. This change does not include any adjustment for typical seasonal patterns.
“There was a healthy increase in new home purchase activity in April, boosted by the strong economic and employment conditions seen in the first quarter of 2019,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “Applications for new home purchases increased, as did our estimate for new home sales. After two months of declines, MBA estimates that April new home sales were 10 percent higher than last April and reached the highest annual pace since this survey’s inception in 2013.”
MBA estimates new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 722,000 units in April 2019, based on data from the BAS. The new home sales estimate is derived using mortgage application information from the BAS, as well as assumptions regarding market coverage and other factors.
The seasonally adjusted estimate for April is an increase of 6.8 percent from the March pace of 676,000 units. On an unadjusted basis, MBA estimates that there were 69,000 new home sales in April 2019, an increase of 4.5 percent from 66,000 new home sales in March.
By product type, conventional loans composed 70.7 percent of loan applications, FHA loans composed 17.1 percent, RHS/USDA loans composed 0.6 percent and VA loans composed 11.5 percent. The average loan size of new homes increased from $331,794 in March to $338,745 in April.
MBA’s Builder Application Survey tracks application volume from mortgage subsidiaries of home builders across the country. Utilizing this data, as well as data from other sources, MBA is able to provide an early estimate of new home sales volumes at the national, state, and metro level. This data also provides information regarding the types of loans used by new home buyers. Official new home sales estimates are conducted by the Census Bureau on a monthly basis. In that data, new home sales are recorded at contract signing, which is typically coincident with the mortgage application.
Read more...Mountainview Financial Solutions and Compass Analytics Partner To Offer Clarity Into MSR Valuations
- Tuesday, 21 May 2019
MountainView Financial Solutions and Compass Analytics announced today the industry's first integration of third-party MSR marks and pipeline hedge analytics. Through this integration, mutual MountainView and Compass clients will be able to access loan-level MSR prices and durations generated by MountainView MSR models within their Compass pipeline hedge analytics and reporting.
This services integration signals MountainView and Compass's desire to improve the accuracy of MSR pricing and duration. To offer this capability, Compass Analytics has added MountainView's loan-level MSR values and duration to its library of APIs and bid automation. Lenders and servicers, through their internal systems, hedge advisors, or LOS systems can now access batch pricing of loan retained MSR values as part of their hedging and best execution process. Sellers and their advisors can employ the same file flow currently employed by the industry for mini-bulk bidding and beginning this June, will also have the option of integrating to MountainView's API.
Dave Bennett of MountainView explained the industry advancement as follows. "Through our collaboration with Compass Analytics, MountainView can support our clients in the oftentimes price-opaque MSR market. Our customers will have much cleaner valuation discovery so they can retain undervalued MSRs (and vice versa), minimize capitalization vs. new loan value disconnects, and properly manage the fluctuating pre-MSR values immediately from the day the loan is locked. With increasing demand on pricing granularity, this partnership with Compass solves a critical business need."
Mike Vough, Senior Hedge Manager and MSR Specialist at Compass Analytics added "The technology collaboration with MountainView's MSR market pricing capabilities will help originators price MSRs far more accurately in rate sheets, pricing engines and best execution retain/release decisions while improving the MSR hedge adjustments through loan sale."
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