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February is always a short month with fewer working days, but last month also marked another new low for HECM volume in the wake of higher interest rates and slowing home prices.
HECM endorsements dropped -12.2% to 2,185 loans – the lowest total in 4 full years if we exclude the COVID-induced lull in April 2020.
Just […]
January HECM endorsements dropped a further -10.7% to 2,489 loans. Rather than beat a dead horse, a picture felt more appropriate here:
It’s clear that the regions with the highest volume peak in 2022 were also generally the ones to decline the most. That’s the epitome of what we continue to see as the first real […]
A month ago we were lamenting the RMF bankruptcy news and with Ginnie Mae’s extinguishment of RMF as an HMBS issuer, it’s now clear that the industry got two lumps of coal for the holidays.
December HECM endorsements dropped -14.9% to 2,786 loans – the lowest total in 3 full years if we exclude the COVID-induced […]
There’s been much bigger news this week with the bankruptcy of longtime industry lender RMF, but endorsements were only good by comparison to that heartbreak. HECM endorsements continued to settle in at the new normal, falling -6.6% in November, just barely avoiding a new multi-year low compared with just two months ago.
We now have 6 […]
Look out below! We’ve been talking about the end of the first real refi boom in HECMs for months now and the proof is finally here. HECM endorsements sank -43.5% in September, the lowest total in 2.5 years.
The expectation is that refinances have dropped dramatically in September, but any significant weakness beyond that could mean […]
HECM endorsements rose 16.2% in August, after a potentially worrying decline in July.
We don’t have an update yet on case numbers issued past June or endorsement mix in August, but once those are available we’ll be looking closely at new HECM growth and where refinance activity is settling.
On the regional side, 8 of the 10 […]
HECM endorsements shrank -17% in July, as the increases in 10 year CMT rates from earlier in the year flow through the application/funding/endorsement cycle.
A look at the case numbers issued through June shows that 2/3 of the decline on that end of the process is from H2H refinance drops, but 1/3 is from a decline […]
HECM endorsements shrank rose 2.7% in June, bucking the headwinds from rapidly rising 10 year treasury rates so far, to finish with 5,937 loans.
We also saw the May edition of FHA’s Production Report released, showing a -56.3% drop in HECM to HECM refinance case numbers issued from March to May. Coupled with a -21.8% decrease […]
HECM endorsements shrank -7.7% in May to 5,783 loans. We have little doubt that the recent rise in 10 year treasury rates influenced that decline, even though case numbers issued (a proxy for HECM applications) show a ~10% increase in HECM to HECM refinance (H2H) volume in March. That’s the most recent case number data […]
April HECM endorsements sagged -3.8% to 6,265 loans – not bad after setting a 10 year high last month. HECM refinances have always been driven more by home price appreciation than interest rate changes, but rising rates do cool things down a bit.
We’d expect slower growth than last year at minimum, but further volume declines […]
