Category Archives: HECM Originators

HECM endorsements rose 10.7% in January, with Wholesale/brokers pacing 14.1% growth while Retail/direct managed 7.8%.

Several lenders in the top ten marked impressive gains on the month as well:

• Hightech jumped 67.9% to 94 loans, bouncing back from a disappointing December
• Longbridge rose 59.8% to finish with 513 loans, a new high for the company on this report
• Ennkar […]
  

HECM endorsements ended the year with a bang, but now we know that Wholesale/brokers led the way by rising 28% to Retail/direct channel’s 15.2% growth on the month.

To put the channels into context, Retail is actually 12.2% above its average from Jan-Nov whereas even […]

HECM endorsements dropped -9.4% in November, with both Retail/direct and Wholesale/brokers declining more than -9%.

In spite of the balance between business channels, 4 of the top 10 lenders actually grew in the month:

• HighTech bounced 71.4% to 96 loans
• Mutual of Omaha Mortgage continued an impressive run, rising 10.5% to 263 loans
• AAG increased 3.1% to 1,295 loans
• Liberty […]
  

HECM endorsements dropped -4.6% in October, but in a reversal from September the Wholesale/broker channel declined much more than Retail/direct, dropping -9.1% compared to just -1% for the latter.

Just two of the top ten lenders gained on the month:

• Mutual of Omaha Mortgage gained 7.2%, endorsing 238 loans
• RMF inched up 2.9% to 389 loans

Check out the […]

HECM endorsements declined -1.9% in September, with the Wholesale/broker channel doing better with a drop of just -0.7% while Retail shrank -2.9%.

Four of the top ten lenders gained on the month:

• Open Mortgage leaped 35.2% to their highest level in over a year, endorsing 242 loans
• FAR bounced back, rising 21.3% to 667 loans
• Liberty increased 10.1% to […]
  

HECM endorsements dropped -6% in August, capping 4 consecutive months of 4,000+ loans for the first time in several years. Wholesale declined -6.5% while Retail was slightly better at -5.6%.

Four of the top ten lenders gained on the month:

• Longbridge again jumped highest, adding 31% to finish with 499 loans
• Open Mortgage gained 28.8% to 179 loans
• Mutual […]
  

HECM endorsements ticked up 1.2% in July, settling out after the initial remote working volatility in these numbers. Wholesale bounced back 10.6% after a significant decline in June, while Retail dropped -5.3% and resume a 55% share of all endorsements.

• Longbridge powered 78.9% higher to 381 loans
• Open Mortgage jumped 37.6% to 139 loans
• RMF, FAR, and Fairway […]
  

HECM endorsements dropped back in June as the backlog clearing spike in May receded. Volume declined 16.4% to 4,203 loans, which was still good for second highest month in more than a year.

A few lenders were still up on the month:

• HighTech jumped 604% to 169 loans, catching up from an April drought and weaker May […]
  

HECM endorsements recovered dramatically in May after HUD and lender operations challenges related to the pandemic constrained volume in April.

Rather than comparing May to April, it makes more sense to compare Apr/May average to the Q1 average for each lender to see how their endorsement volumes are trending:

• FAR leads the way with 30.7% growth from […]
  

We already know that April HECM endorsements dropped off a cliff and recovered in May, which strongly suggested that April’s volume had a lot of other factors than a drop in HECM lending behind the decline.

We now have more detailed data to confirm just how noisy the month was, so rather than analyze it we’ll […]