What does RMBS mean in Residential?

Residential mortgage-backed security

Bonds securitizing mortgages are usually treated as a separate class, termed residential mortgage-backed security (RMBS). In that sense, making reference to the general package of financial agreements that typically represents cash yields that are paid to investors and that are supported by cash payments received from homeowners who pay interest and principal according to terms agreed to with their lenders; it is a funding instrument created by the "originator" or "sponsor" of the mortgage loan; without cross-collateralizing individual loans and mortgages (because it would be impossible to receive permission from individual homeowners), it is a funding instrument that pools the cash flow received from individuals and pays these cash receipts out with waterfall priorities that enable investors to become comfortable with the certainty of receipt of cash at any point in time. There are multiple important differences between mortgage loans originated and serviced by banks and kept on the books of the bank and a mortgage loan that has been securitized as part of an RMBS. Chief among these is the result that the principal who interacts with the borrower, and drives the decision making of the "Servicer" who is newly introduced into the relationship, no longer has an obligation towards the responsibilities associated with the public trust and banking charter that traditionally controlled the loan relationships between banks and their customers. Unless a loan is reconstituted onto the balance sheet of an original lender, the retail-to-consumer relationship between the borrower and his bank is changed to a relationship that is between the original customer and a sophisticated accredited investor for whom the bank Servicer acts as a front. An RMBS is often confusingly yet correctly referred to as a "bond-like" financial investment as a RMBS can be portrayed to have similar characteristics, including a "principal investment" and a "yield"; the "principal investment," however, does not represent the purchase of an individual promissory note issued by a homeowner, but rather represents the payment of "principal" for the right to receive cash flow from an investment agreement that involves many other understandings. Likewise, the "yield" is only the calculation of an imputed interest yield that stems from the receipt of the cashflows. The RMBS market represents the largest source of funding of residential mortgage loans to US homeowners (see below). The performance of these securities has generally been considered more predictable than commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), because of the large number of individual and geographically diversified loans that exist within any individual RMBS pool. There are many different types of RMBS, including mortgage pass-throughs, collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).

see more »