HECM Mortgage-Backed Securities (“HMBS”) issuance in February totaled $470 million, $118 million lower than January’s $588 million. 77 pools were issued in February, eight fewer than January.
FAR was the top issuer again in February with $125 million – a decrease of $35 million from January’s $160 million. Issuance from Longbridge decreased to $107 million from $139 million. Mutual of Omaha issuance decreased by $10 million to $95 million. PHH issued $90 million – a $29 million decrease from last month’s $119 million. Ginnie Mae/RMF (aka “Issuer 42”) again issued no HMBS pools.
February’s original (first participation) production of $303 million was $103 million lower than January’s $406 million and $86 million lower than December’s $389 million.
The 77 pools issued in February consisted of 20 first-participation or original pools, 56 tail pools and 1 pool consisting of both original and tail participations. 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. Tails are not from new loans, but they do represent new amounts lent. Last month’s tail pool issuance totaled $167 million, down from January’s $183 million.
Notable in the February HMBS issuance data are 23 pools with aggregate pool size less than $1 million. Issuers are taking advantage of Ginnie Mae’s provision to issue pools as small as $250,000. This represents $11.8 million of UPB that may not otherwise have been issued in February. Ginnie Mae issued APM 23-11 in January of 2023 which allows participations from the same loan to be pooled more than once in the same month. The aggregate of participations pooled in February for which more than one participation from the same loan was pooled is $54.0 million, of which $1.4 million were first participations.
New View Advisors compiled this data from publicly available Ginnie Mae data as well as private sources.