HECM endorsements rose 2.1% in February to 5,166 loans. This small rise put the industry back into positive year over year territory after showing a small decline in January, but that’s going to get a lot harder as March 2013 volume was at levels we haven’t seen since and application and funding volumes in recent months suggest weak endorsement volumes as soon as this month.
Several things stood out this month beyond total industry volume:
- Liberty HES showed a huge volume increase to lead the industry for the month, at 838 loans after just 201 in January. This could be catching up on endorsements more than anything else since Dec/Jan were quite low.
- Pacific/Hawaii region continues to crank out the volume at 46.5% growth from last year, with Las Vegas and Honolulu leading the charge at 110% and 83%, respectively
- In keeping with the lower industry total volumes, just 108 loans over 2 months was good enough to crack the top 10 lenders for HighTech Lending and Sun West
- And a single high volume loan officer could crack the top 100 lenders list, with ranks 97-100 each showing just 9 loans total for Jan-Feb
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