March was the lowest month in recent memory for HECM endorsements, down -19.3% to 4,374 loans. We have to go all the way back to September of 2005 to find a month with lower volume.
Broker/TPO channel business declined dramatically, dropping -26.6% compared to -12.8% for retail/direct. This relative performance gap has swung both ways in recent months, but retail continues to comprise 55-60% of all volume.
Given that we’ve seen industry volume numbers decline while individual lenders grow volume, there is more attention than ever being paid to lender rankings. We’ve heard many lenders targeting a top 10 ranking in the wake of big lender exits – in the past 12 months any lender averaging 100 loans per month or more made the cut. For Q1 the bar was even lower, down to 65 loans per month.
If you’d like to hear more about how our sales and marketing tools can help you get there, drop us a line to schedule a call or better yet, a meeting next week at NRMLA Irvine.
Click the image below to see the full report, including rankings of all HECM originators including TPOs:
