The retail endorsement numbers for the January 2010 are now available. Endorsement volume came in at 7,629 units for the month, an 8% drop from December 09, and a decline of 22.6% from January of last year. We have to go all the way back to October 2006 to see a lower endorsement number.
Some highlights for the month:
- The number of active lenders decreased to 1,017 in the January period. This is a drop of almost 19% vs January 2009, almost even with the volume decline and easing the hit to lenders from lower volume.
- Another strong indication that lower volume is affecting competition as we saw only 43 new lenders in January. Again, we have to go back three years to see a value lower than this.
- All HUD regions experienced volume declines compared to last January. Leading the way on the negative side were the Rocky Mountain, Great Plains, and Southwest regions. In the “Still down, but not so much” camp, we have the New York/New Jersey, Mid-Atlantic, and Southwest regions.
- When we get to the field office level, we finally see some areas of strength. San Francisco, Baltimore, Houston, New Orleans, Birmingham, Columbus, Spokane, Nashville, Shreveport, Grand Rapids, and Sioux Falls were the only 11 field offices that experienced higher volume vs Jan 09.
Click on the image below for this month’s Retail Leaders report:
