Redwood Trust Inc is looking to float at least $200 million worth of securities backed by home mortgage loans, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation.

Redwood's plan marks an attempt by a private player to reopen the market for securities backed by home mortgage loans without any government backing, the Journal said.

The sale may be announced as early as next week, but the deal could be postponed if market conditions are not conducive, the paper said.

The transaction would be the first sale in more than two years of private-label securities backed by newly originated home mortgages, the newspaper said.

The private-label securities market dried up more than two years ago at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

Such securities are issued by private companies and are not backed by government sponsored companies such as Freddie Mac .

In the past, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aggressively purchased private-label securities.

Those mortgages contained subprime and other risky loans whose rising delinquencies were seen as triggering the global financial crisis.

The company's proposed securities would be backed by jumbo mortgages -- those that are too big to be backed by government agencies, the Journal said.

Redwood could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore, Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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