J.P. Morgan Mortgage Acquisition Corp. -- Moody's decreases J.P. Morgan Mortgage Acquisition Corp.'s assessment to Average from Above Average, as an aggregator of prime jumbo residential mortgage loans

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Announcement: Moody's decreases J.P. Morgan Mortgage Acquisition Corp.'s assessment to Average from Above Average, as an aggregator of prime jumbo residential mortgage loans

Global Credit Research - 21 Aug 2020

New York, August 21, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service (Moody's) has assessed J.P. Morgan Mortgage Acquisition Corp. as an Average aggregator of prime jumbo residential mortgage loans. The assessment represents a one notch decrease from the previous overall assessment of Above Average.

The one notch decrease in the overall assessment was driven by a decrease in our assessment of valuation practices which went from Average to Below Average and credit risk management which decreased from Above Average to Average. Both changes were driven by the introduction of a new valuation cascade and the lack of performance data and uncertainty associated with this practice.

Headquartered in New York, NY, J.P. Morgan Mortgage Acquisition Corp. (JPMMAC) is a whole loan non-agency conduit for Chase Mortgage Banking and selected third party originators. The program focuses on prime single family residential fixed and adjustable rate residential mortgages with both jumbo and conforming balances. Securitizations related to this conduit are issued under J.P. Morgan Mortgage Trust (JPMMT). JPMMAC's parent company is J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Like many of its peers, JPMMAC acquired very few loans at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. Instead of relying on underwriting and operational overlays, JPMMAC utilized a risk based pricing strategy to manage COVID-19 related risk.

ASSESSMENT RATIONALE

We continue to assess JPMMAC's underwriting as Below Average because JPMMAC does not have its own underwriting guidelines. The seller's guidelines, which are programmed into JPMMAC's system, are compared to industry standards and riskier loan products are either not approved for purchase or are priced for the increased risk. In 2019, JPMMAC's purchase criteria focused mainly on hard credit guidelines. In 2020, the criteria was expanded to include a broader set of soft guideline parameters and all loans are reviewed to the criteria by the third party review firms as overlays to the seller's guidelines. JPMMAC's valuation practices have weakened since our last review shifting from Average to Below Average. Instead of JPMMAC's earlier practice of only utilizing desk reviews as the first step in the valuation review, a proven practice in the industry where the original appraisal is checked by an appraiser for quality and valuation, JPMMAC is now relying on a combination of Fannie Mae's Collateral Underwriter (CU) and automated valuation models (AVMs) before escalating to a desk review. The new products introduce new risks due to limitations compared to desk reviews. Examples of these limitations include using Fannie Mae's Collateral Underwriter (CU) which is not calibrated for prime jumbo mortgages and insufficient information to assess the riskiness of using automated valuation models. Neither product have a track record through a stressed economic cycle. Our views on these processes may change as more information becomes available. We continue to assess JPMMAC's loan performance as Strong due to low early payment defaults and repurchase requests since program inception.