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 months of case number issuance data to tell us that 3,500-3,700 case numbers per month are being pulled for equity takeout, with refis drifting lower and purchases bringing up a distant rear. We shouldn’t expect any meaningful increase until that equity takeout number gets driven higher by doing the harder work of finding new borrowers.
All 10 regions were down so we’ll skip straight to the lenders.
Three of the top ten lenders gained ground:
- Liberty jumped 26.8% to 260 loans
- Longbridge inched up 3.2% to 294 loans
- Fairway grew 2% to 200 loans
Click the image below for the full report.
