After a full year away from #1, AAG recaptured the lead HMBS issuer slot for the first quarter of 2019, with $391 million of issuance for a 23.5% market share. RMF was second, with $323.5 million issued and 19.5% market share, and FAR remained in third with $244 million issued and 14.7% market share. Ocwen Loan Servicing and Nationstar round out the top five issuers. Ocwen issued $210.6 million for a 12.7% market share, and Nationstar was fifth with $142.7 million and 8.6% market share. These five issuers accounted for approximately 79% of all issuance, down from 2018’s record 92%. There were 15 active HMBS issuers during the quarter, including first-time issuer Synergy One Lending, now owned by Mutual of Omaha.
2019Q1 saw only $1.67 billion of HMBS issued, a 44% decline from one year ago, and an almost five-year quarterly low. For comparison, total HMBS issuance volume in the first quarter of 2018 equaled $2.97 billion. As previously noted, unless highly seasoned pool issuance makes a meaningful and lasting return, expect lower HMBS issuance volume going forward.
(Editor’s note: The following article was republished with permission from New View Advisors, which compiled these rankings from publicly available Ginnie Mae data as well as private sources.)