The HMBS market remained stuck at $55 billion in August. HMBS Prepayments topped $1 billion, but was balanced by 92 new pools totaling over $913 million. In its second month of issuance, Longbridge Financial led all issuers with nine pools totaling $215 million.
August issuance divided into 52 original pools and 40 tail pools. No seasoned original new loan pools were issued. Production of original new loan pools was a healthy $736 million, the highest total since last August, and up from $622 million last month.
Original pools are those HMBS pools backed by first participations in previously uncertificated HECM loans. Tail HMBS issuances are HMBS pools consisting of subsequent participations. In other words, tail pools are created from the Uncertificated Portions of HECMs that have already had their original HMBS issuance. July’s tail issuance was about $177 million.
Last month, total outstanding HMBS grew by $43 million from July. We estimate that last month’s change in HMBS balance was composed of over $188 million in negative amortization (a record), plus the $914 million in new issuance, minus $1.06 billion in payoffs. Last month’s payoffs were the third highest ever; payoffs have exceeded new issuance for twelve months in a row.
Payoff figures are still high as more seasoned HECM loans liquidate or reach 98% of their Maximum Claim Amount (“MCA”). Our friends at RecursionCo once again crunched the numbers: the payoffs from 98% MCA puts totaled approximately $590 million last month. According to Recursion, the 98% MCA puts were only $92 million, or 29.8% of payoffs in September 2013. This probably means further shrinkage in HMBS float throughout 2017.
New View Advisors compiled this data from publicly available Ginnie Mae data as well as private sources.