RMF was the #1 start-to-finish HMBS issuer in 2018, responsible for $3.92 billion of HMBS securities, a whopping 41% market share, well ahead of second place AAG’s 20% share. RMF’s tally includes approximately $600 million of HMBS it purchased from Live Well Financial in December. AAG issued $1.91 billion of HMBS for the year, virtually all new issuance and tails. FAR stays in third with $1.34 billion issued and 14% market share. Ocwen Loan Servicing and Longbridge Financial round out the top five issuers. Ocwen issued $728.7 million for a 10% market share, and Longbridge was fifth with $599 million issued for a 6% market share. This is Longbridge Financial’s first appearance in the Top Five. These five issuers accounted for almost 92% of all issuance, a record. There were 14 active HMBS issuers last quarter – only Bank of America did not issue HMBS in Q4 (or Q3).
2018 saw nearly $9.6 billion of HMBS issued, with Q4 issuance at $2.2 billion. For comparison, total HMBS issuance volume in 2017 equaled $10.5 billion. Thank a 2018 total of highly seasoned issuance from RMF of nearly $2.2 billion for the relatively strong issuance totals. However, as previously noted, unless highly seasoned pool issuance continues, expect lower volume going forward. Tail issuance continues to provide volume (and profit) stability to HMBS issuers to offset the new issue slowdown. Of 2018’s issuance, $2.7 billion was from tails.
New View Advisors compiled this data from publicly available Ginnie Mae data as well as private sources.
