We’re just as curious to hear what FHA will announce as you are, and while we think there are some reasonable options available to address concerns about full draw requirements on the fixed rate product, the big wild card seems to be FHA’s mutual mortgage insurance fund health and specifically the financial health of the HECM book of business from prior years. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot we can do about that at this point, but it did bring up an idea while we were scanning our database.
No matter what next year has in store for the FHA HECM and our reverse mortgage industry, it’s always a good idea to target your marketing instead of blasting away with the shotgun approach.
We ran a quick list of the top MSAs with at least 100 HECMs endorsed Jan-Sep, ranked by % ARM. Consider the top 5 list below a free contribution from us to you as we give thanks for a productive year and keep our fingers crossed for focusing on next year’s trends.
- New Haven-Milford, CT
- Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT
- Cambridge-Newton-Framingham, MA
- Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA
- Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL
We found it fascinating that 4 of the top 5 were in New England, and 6 of the top 8 as well. We have many thoughts about why this might be, but always curious to hear from our readers too if you think you know what makes these areas different.
We are also posting here Part 1 of a recent interview from San Antonio NRMLA conference with Shannon Hicks of Reverse Focus. Thanks to Shannon for the interview opportunity and video editing work to bring us fully into the social media video age!
Check out the full report below by clicking on the image and learn more about what’s working now in reverse.
