MIAC puts $1.1 billion in Ginnie Mae loans up for sale

Mortgage Industry Advisory Corp. put up for sale $1.1 billion of Ginnie Mae-backed whole nonperforming mortgages, its second such offering this year.

Almost half, or 49%, of the entire pool comes from six states California, New York, Florida, Texas, Maryland and New Jersey. The weighted average coupon rate is 4.145%. The 4,512 loans are being offered by an undisclosed seller.

Total unpaid balance of all loans for sale equals slightly more than $1.1 billion, with an average size of $246,768. Last month, MIAC also announced the sale of a $126 million package of Ginnie Mae whole loans, with the majority originating in Louisiana.

Servicers sometimes opt to sell seriously delinquent, or nonperforming, Ginnie Mae-securitized loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs to reduce interest payments, which they are still responsible for when their client misses payments. MGIC’s announcement comes as the overall mortgage delinquency rate across the country showed encouraging signs in January, falling back to near pre-COVID lows, according to Black Knight.

The amount of seriously delinquent loans that were more than 90 days past due also dropped 9% between December and January, a potentially promising signal of reperformance after federal financial protections offered to homeowners began expiring last summer. But the total number of loans that are currently seriously delinquent still outnumbers the pre-pandemic volume of them by nearly half a million.

A more worrying signal came from the number of borrowers who rolled into the early-delinquency stage, which inched higher, according to Black Knight. Separate research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found close to 200,000 seriously delinquent borrowers with FHA and VA-backed loans in current loss mitigation plans were still missing payments.

MGIC listed a buy-out date of April 29, 2022, with sales closing on May 2. The servicing transfer date is currently scheduled for June 15.