DS News

12 PRIVATE-SECTOR SECURITIZATION BEGINS ITS COMEBACK WITH JPMORGAN CHASE RMBS DEAL JPMorgan Chase & Co., is preparing to sell a group of mortgage-backed securities worth nearly $2 billion, a bank spokesperson confirmed to DS News. is credit risk transfer is expected to reduce the risk borne by U.S. taxpayers and bring more private capital back into the mortgage market. In addition, this transaction will help restore private-sector securitization, a necessary component of the broader recovery of the housing system in the U.S. According to the Wall Street Journal, the bank is expected to price the residential mortgage-backed securities deal over the next two weeks. JPMorgan Chase would hold 90 percent of the deal by holding the safest parts and selling off the riskier pieces to investors. e report also stated that the pool contains more than 6,o00 mortgages, including both new and refinances, and that approximately three-quarters of them conform to Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's underwriting standards. According to the bank, the aggregate unpaid balance of the mortgages in the deal is approximately $1.9 billion. e bank confirmed to DS News that all of the mortgages in the deal are owned by JPMorgan Chase. is will be the bank 's first "house transaction" (meaning the bank owns all of the mortgages in the deal) since the financial crisis. A poll released by U.S. Mortgage Insurers (USMI) found that the majority of Americans believe that the government is not doing enough to prevent another taxpayer- funded bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and also that the private sector should bear most of the risk on mortgage loans that default. Respondents in USMI's survey expressed similar sentiments. Almost half of the survey's respondents, 49 percent, stated that they believe that the government is not doing enough to reduce the risk of a taxpayer- funded bailout of the two GSEs. Likewise, a majority of the respondents (48 percent) believe that the private sector should bear the risk for the responsibility on mortgage loans that go bad. Nineteen percent said that borrowers should shoulder the losses, and 12 percent said it should be the government. More than half the survey's respondents (54 percent) said they would support legislation requiring more private capital, such as additional mortgage insurance, that would reduce the losses taxpayers would absorb should mortgage loans default. Despite these survey results, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do appear to be making an effort to perform credit risk sharing transactions with private investors. Fannie Mae has priced its latest credit risk sharing transaction in the Connecticut Avenue Securities (CAS) at $945.1 million, according to an announcement from Fannie Mae. "Fannie Mae continues to focus on the long term strength and stability of our Connecticut Avenue Securities program," said Laurel Davis, VP of credit risk transfer, Fannie Mae. "We continue to work to build a deeper market for credit risk and are pleased with investor participation in the program. We've built a robust set of credit risk management tools that benefit Fannie Mae and the investors in our credit risk transfers. Fannie Mae will continue to innovate in the credit risk management space so that we can build a better housing finance system for the future." Freddie Mac launched a new asset class with the beginning of the Structured Agency Credit Risk (STACR) series in July 2013 as a strategy for selling credit risk on single-family mortgages to private investors. "By shifting more of our potential credit losses to private investors, we've led the way in transforming how a significant portion of the U.S. housing market is funded," said Kevin Palmer, SVP of Credit Risk Transfer (CRT), in a commentary on Freddie Mac's website. "is further protects U.S. taxpayers from backstopping GSE credit losses and helps to build a more robust system that can keep overall mortgage rates low, while creating a more sustainable mortgage funding model." CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS ARE MAKING A COMEBACK e expectations of consumers toward inflation, the economy, housing, personal finances, and the labor market were up across the board, which suggests that expectations are on the rebound, according to the results from the February 2016 Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE) released by the New York Fed . As core inflation is rising heading into the Federal Open Market Committee's second meeting of 2016, which starts Tuesday and concludes Wednesday afternoon, the median inflation expectations of consumers increased over-the-month at both the one-year horizon (from 2.4 percent to 2.7 percent) and at the three- year horizon (from 2.5 percent to 2.6 percent). "e increase was most pronounced among respondents with lower income, lower education and lower numeracy," the New York Fed said, noting that the median inflation expectations at both horizons remained at the low end of the range observed in the last two and a half years. e median home price expectation rose by 0.1 percentage point from January to February, up to 3.1 percent, according to the SCE. e home price expectation was broad-based, though it was most pronounced in the West and Northeast. Despite the increase, the median home price expectation remains below the series average, according to the New York Fed. e median one-year ahead expected earnings growth reversed two months of decline by jumping up to 2.5 percent in February, the level it was at for most of last year. ough the increase was broad-based, the respondents with a high school degree or less saw the most pronounced increase. e results of the February SCE indicated that expectations in the labor market were more positive—the mean number of respondents who said they thought the unemployment rate would be higher a year from now declined from 38.1 percent in January to 37.9 percent in February. Also, the mean probability of losing one's job in the next 12 months ticked slightly downward to 13.9 percent. Consumers' expectations of their finances jumped in February—the median expected household income growth rose from 2.2 percent to 2.5 percent over-the-month, driven by older, less educated, and lower income respondents, according to the New York Fed. Despite the increase, it remained below 2015 levels.

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