Fitch Ratings has assigned final ratings to the residential mortgage-backed notes issued by Verus Securitization Trust 2022-8 (Verus 2022-8).

RATING ACTIONS

Entity / Debt

Rating

Prior

VERUS 2022-8

A-1

LT

AAAsf

New Rating

AAA(EXP)sf

A-2

LT

AA+sf

New Rating

AA+(EXP)sf

A-3

LT

Asf

New Rating

A+(EXP)sf

M-1

LT

BBB-sf

New Rating

BBB-(EXP)sf

B-1

LT

NRsf

New Rating

NR(EXP)sf

B-2

LT

NRsf

New Rating

NR(EXP)sf

B-3

LT

NRsf

New Rating

NR(EXP)sf

A-IO-S

LT

NRsf

New Rating

NR(EXP)sf

Page

of 1

VIEW ADDITIONAL RATING DETAILS

Transaction Summary

After Fitch issued expected ratings to Verus 2022-8 on Oct. 5, 2022, the issuer provided a new tape reflective of the cut-off date, Oct. 1, 2022. As a result of a slightly weaker delinquency profile, Fitch increased its expected losses by 25bps at the 'AAsf', 'BBsf' and 'Bsf' stresses. Due to the increased losses, the credit enhancement for the class A-3 was not sufficient to pass an 'A+sf' stress, as previously assigned. Fitch has assigned a final rating of 'Asf' to the class A-3.

The notes are supported by 745 loans with a balance of $469.6 million as of the cutoff date. The notes are secured by mortgage loans originated by various originators and acquired by the sellers. Of the loans in the pool, 59.3% are designated as nonqualified mortgage (Non-QM), and the remaining 40.7% are investment properties not subject to the Ability-to-Repay (ATR) Rule.

Distributions of principal and interest (P&I) and loss allocations are based on a modified sequential payment structure. The transaction has a stop advance feature where the P&I advancing party will advance delinquent P&I for up to 90 days.

KEY RATING DRIVERS

Updated Sustainable Home Prices (Negative): Due to Fitch's updated view on sustainable home prices, Fitch views the home price values of this pool as 11.2% above a long-term sustainable level (versus 12.2% on a national level for 2Q22, up 1.2% since last quarter). Underlying fundamentals are not keeping pace with the growth in prices, resulting from a supply/demand imbalance driven by low inventory, favorable mortgage rates, and new buyers entering the market. These trends have led to significant home price increases over the past year, with home prices rising 15.8% yoy nationally as of July 2022.

Non-Prime Credit Quality (Mixed): The collateral consists of five-, seven-, and 10-year hybrid adjustable-rate loans and 15-, 30- and 40-year fixed-rate loans. Adjustable-rate loans comprise 10.2% of the pool. Of the loans, 29.8% are IO loans and the remaining 70.2% are fully amortizing loans. The pool is seasoned approximately five months in aggregate, as calculated by Fitch. The borrowers in this pool have a strong credit profile with a 735 weighted average model FICO, 42.7% model debt-to-income ratio (DTI), and relatively moderate leverage of 78.2% sustainable loan to value ratio (sLTV).

Approximately 3.3% of the loans have experienced a delinquency in the past 24 months and 1.6% of the loans are currently 30 days delinquent; 1.1% of the loans in the pool were underwritten to foreign national borrowers. The pool characteristics resemble recent non-prime collateral, and, therefore, the pool was analyzed using Fitch's non-prime model.

Alternative Documentation Loans (Negative): For approximately 92.1% of the loans, alternative documentation was used to underwrite the loans. Of these loans, 39.2% were underwritten to a bank statement program to verify income, which is not consistent with Appendix Q standards or Fitch's view of a full documentation program. To reflect the additional risk, Fitch increases the probability of default (PD) by 1.5x on the bank statement loans. Besides loans underwritten to a bank statement program, 28.5% are a debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) product, 4.8% are a written verification of employment (WVOE) product, 14.8% are P&L loans and 2.0% comprise an asset depletion product.

Modified Sequential Payment Structure with Limited Advancing (Mixed): The structure distributes principal pro rata among the senior notes while locking out the subordinate classes from principal payments until the senior classes are paid off. If a delinquency trigger event or a cumulative loss trigger event occurs in a given period, principal will be distributed sequentially to class A-1, A-2 and A-3 notes until each class balance is reduced to zero.

The structure includes a step-up coupon feature where the fixed interest rate for classes A-1, A-2 and A-3 will increase by 100 bps on the October 2026 payment date and thereafter. This reduces the modest excess spread available to repay losses. However, the interest rate is subject to the net weighted average coupon (WAC) and any unpaid cap carryover amount for classes A-1, A-2 and A-3 may be reimbursed from the distribution amounts otherwise allocable to the unrated class B-3, to the extent available. The provision to redirect class B-3 interest payments to cover any cap carryover amounts to the senior classes was changed to be effective before the step-up date, as opposed to commencing in October 2026, as indicated in the presale.

Advances of delinquent P&I will be made on the mortgage loans for the first 90 days of delinquency, to the extent such advances are deemed recoverable. If the P&I advancing parties fail to make required advances, the master servicer, Nationstar Mortgage LLC (Nationstar), will be obligated to make such advance. If the master servicer fails to make advances, the paying agent (Citibank, N.A.) will fund advances. The stop advance feature limits the external liquidity to the bonds in the event of large and extended delinquencies, but the loan-level loss severities (LS) are less for this transaction than for those where the servicer is obligated to advance P&I for the life of the transaction as P&I advances made on behalf of loans that become delinquent and eventually liquidate reduce liquidation proceeds to the trust.

RATING SENSITIVITIES

Factors that could, individually or collectively, lead to negative rating action/downgrade:

The defined negative rating sensitivity analysis demonstrates how the ratings would react to steeper MVDs at the national level. The analysis assumes MVDs of 10.0%, 20.0% and 30.0% in addition to the model projected 42.3% at 'AAA'. The analysis indicates that there is some potential rating migration with higher MVDs for all rated classes, compared with the model projection. Specifically, a 10% additional decline in home prices would lower all rated classes by one full category.

Factors that could, individually or collectively, lead to positive rating action/upgrade:

The defined positive rating sensitivity analysis demonstrates how the ratings would react to positive home price growth of 10.0% with no assumed overvaluation. Excluding the senior class, which is already rated 'AAAsf', the analysis indicates there is potential positive rating migration for all of the rated classes. Specifically, a 10.0% gain in home prices would result in a full category upgrade for the rated class excluding those being assigned ratings of 'AAAsf'.

Best/Worst Case Rating Scenario

International scale credit ratings of Structured Finance transactions have a best-case rating upgrade scenario (defined as the 99th percentile of rating transitions, measured in a positive direction) of seven notches over a three-year rating horizon; and a worst-case rating downgrade scenario (defined as the 99th percentile of rating transitions, measured in a negative direction) of seven notches over three years. The complete span of best- and worst-case scenario credit ratings for all rating categories ranges from 'AAAsf' to 'Dsf'. Best- and worst-case scenario credit ratings are based on historical performance. For more information about the methodology used to determine sector-specific best- and worst-case scenario credit ratings, visit https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/10111579.

USE OF THIRD PARTY DUE DILIGENCE PURSUANT TO SEC RULE 17G -10

Fitch was provided with Form ABS Due Diligence-15E (Form 15E) as prepared by SitusAMC (AMC), Clayton Services (Clayton), Consolidated Analytics, Inc., Covius Real Estate Services (Covius), Digital Risk LLC (Digital Risk), Edge Mortgage Advisory Company (EdgeMAC), Evolve Mortgage Services (Evolve), Infinity International Processing Services, Inc. (Infinity), Recovco Mortgage Management (Recovco) and Selene Diligence (Selene). The third-party due diligence described in Form 15E focused on credit, compliance, property valuation and data integrity. Fitch considered the due diligence information in its analysis. Overall, the model credit for the 100% loan-level due diligence review combined with the adjustments for loan exceptions reduced the 'AAAsf' loss expectation by 50bps.

REFERENCES FOR SUBSTANTIALLY MATERIAL SOURCE CITED AS KEY DRIVER OF RATING

The principal sources of information used in the analysis are described in the Applicable Criteria.

REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES AND ENFORCEMENT MECHANISMS

A description of the transaction's representations, warranties and enforcement mechanisms (RW&Es) that are disclosed in the offering document and which relate to the underlying asset pool is available by clicking the link to the Appendix. The appendix also contains a comparison of these RW&Es to those Fitch considers typical for the asset class as detailed in the Special Report titled 'Representations, Warranties and Enforcement Mechanisms in Global Structured Finance Transactions'.

ESG Considerations

VERUS 2022-8 has an ESG Relevance Score of '4' for Transaction Parties & Operational Risk due to elevated operational risk, which resulted in an increase in expected losses. While the originator, aggregator and servicing parties did not have an impact on the expected losses, the Tier 2 R&W framework with an unrated counterparty resulted in an increase in the expected losses. This has a negative impact on the credit profile and is relevant to the ratings in conjunction with other factors.

Unless otherwise disclosed in this section, the highest level of ESG credit relevance is a score of '3'. This means ESG issues are credit-neutral or have only a minimal credit impact on the entity, either due to their nature or the way in which they are being managed by the entity. For more information on Fitch's ESG Relevance Scores, visit www.fitchratings.com/esg.

Additional information is available on www.fitchratings.com

(C) 2022 Electronic News Publishing, source ENP Newswire