Recently, unusually large amounts of manufactured housing collateral has been hitting the market via bank issuance vehicles, mainly from story originators that have either exited the market or were not active MH issuers. As market exodus is a major driver of this small trend, there should not be many more of these deals, analysts said.
In particular, The CIT Group has been selling off its MH portfolio in piecemeal, and the collateral first appeared last fall in a $1.3 billion Lehman Brothers vehicle called Lehman Manufactured Housing ABS 2001-1 (see ASR 10/29). CIT retained the servicing rights. The company had been a securitizer of MH loans in the mid-1990s, but hasn’t been seen as such since 1995. Earlier this month, Credit Suisse First Boston brought a $100 million deal called CSFB Pass-Thru Certs MH3, backed by loans it had purchased from CIT.
Meanwhile, according to published reports, Champion Enterprise is planning to securitize the MH loans it originates through a unit it acquired from CIT early this month. CIT has retained the servicing rights on the existing loans. It’s unclear at this point whether or not CIT will continue running a MH servicing operation or transfer down the line.
Champion will integrate the origination platform into its HomePride Finance Corp., and will close a $150 million warehouse line to facilitate the HomePride operations.
In late March, Bear Stearns, via its Madison Avenue MH Trust 2002-1, securitized nearly $800 million worth of manufactured housing collateral from GreenPoint Financial Corp. GreenPoint announced in January that it was exiting the business, partially related to rising loss rates and their impact on profitability.
Elsewhere in manufactured housing, it is said that Associates First Capital Corp., a Texas-based finance company that was purchased by Citigroup in 2000, recently sold a portfolio of MH loans to Vanderbilt Mortgage & Finance.