U.S. RMBS 2025 Outlook: The More Things Change, the More They Might Just Stay the Same

This commentary presents our 2025 Outlook for the U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) sector.

While the 2025 mortgage, housing, and RMBS landscape looks to be slightly different from 2024 in a number of respects, the ultimate results may end up just being a continuation of the patterns seen throughout 2024.

Key highlights include:
-- The 2025 U.S. RMBS market is set to see many continuing themes from the previous year.
-- With changes in the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for 2025, possible shifts are creating uncertainty in the near term, and eventual policy enactments could, in certain instances, positively OR negatively influence housing supply, affordability, inflation, and ultimately RMBS credit risk and aggregate issuance volumes.
-- Home equity-related products, residential transition loans, and other emerged esoteric RMBS subsectors should likely see volume expansion in 2025 as higher conforming mortgage rates and housing prices still constrain borrowers.