GSE RPL MBS in StoryBook

Introduction

StoryBook now supports GSE RPL MBS: issuance and prepayment history are available on both RPL loans and pools. The Reperforming Loan (RPL, Re-Performing) mortgage-backed securities (MBS) sector securitizes loans that were once deeply delinquent and bought out of pools but begin performing again either because the borrower was able to recover from a financial shock after receiving some form of temporary relief from their existing schedule of mortgage payments, or because the terms of the loan were permanently altered. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ("GSEs" for short) and Ginnie Mae (GNMA) issue RPL MBSs but the GNMA RPL sector is somewhat larger with approximately $51 billion outstanding as of October 2026, compared to $34 billion for the GSEs.

Two national scale housing shocks created a substantial portion of the loan population that is currently securitized in RPL pools: the Global Financial Crisis (August 2007 - June 2009) and the COVID pandemic (January 2020 - April 2023). In the aftermath of the GFC, national delinquency rates had surged to almost 12% by early 2010 resulting in the GSEs buying out troubled loans en masse from their pools and holding them in portfolio while attempting to cure them. The first attempt to shrink these holdings commenced with Freddie Mac issuing nearly $1bb in MBS backed by reperforming reinstated loans in November 2011. Fannie Mae followed suit in November 2016.

The earliest mortgage products pooled in GSE RPL MBS were reinstated 30-year loans. Later iterations to the RPL program included the pooling of loans which had their terms modified: longer-term 40-year mortgages, step-rate mortgages, and mortgages where the borrower was offered some form of principal forbearance.

RPL MBS in StoryBook

To distinguish between the different RPL programs, StoryBook uses both the loan term (30-year, 40-year etc.) and the loss mitigation process the borrower underwent in the processing of reperforming: reinstatement (RPL-NOMOD), modifying the rate or the term (RPL-FIXMOD), modifying the rate/term while allowing forbearance (RPL-FIXMODFORB), and modifying the rate/term so that borrower is placed in an step-rate level-payment mortgage (RPL-STEPMOD).

Figures 1 and 2 provide a visual illustration of how RPL products can be selected within the Loan and Pool Cohorts tabs in StoryBook. StoryBook functionality for setting up and analyzing cohorts works exactly as before.

Figure 1. RPL Loan Cohorts in StoryBook

Figure 2. RPL Pool Cohorts in StoryBook

StoryBook also provides access to RPL pools in Flash.

Figure 3. RPL Pool Cohorts in Flash