HECM Mortgage-Backed Securities (“HMBS”) issuance in May totaled $544 million, $9 million higher than April’s $535 million. 73 pools were issued in May, eight fewer than in April.
FAR was the top issuer in May with $161 million – a decrease of $10 million from April’s $171 million. Issuance from Longbridge was $124 million, the same as in April. Mutual of Omaha issuance increased by $10 million to $103 million. PHH issued $98 million – a $3 million increase from last month’s $95 million. Ginnie Mae/RMF (aka “Issuer 42”) again issued no HMBS pools.
May’s original (first participation) production of $366 million was $22 million higher than April’s $344 million and $49 million higher than March’s $317 million.
The 73 pools issued in May consisted of 21 first-participation or original pools, 50 tail pools and two pools 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 $177 million compared to April’s $189 million.
Notable in the May HMBS issuance data are 19 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 $9.8 million of UPB that may not otherwise have been issued in May. Ginnie Mae issued APM 23-11 in 2023 which allows participations from the same loan to be pooled more than once in the same month. The aggregate of participations pooled in May for which more than one participation from the same loan was pooled is $60.5 million, of which $2.3 million were first participations.
New View Advisors compiled this data from publicly available Ginnie Mae data as well as private sources.