Last month’s HECM Lenders report showed us that industry volume was up 5.3% in August, despite an expectation of lower totals for the rest of the year. Now that we can see more detailed August data in our HECM Originators report (linked below), we discover that broker/wholesale volumes had already started to swoon.
We commented last month on the relatively narrow performance gap between retail/direct and broker/wholesale volumes as the changes from broker approval to TPO and lender compensation regulations worked its way through. This month the gap has opened back up, with retail/direct up 10.5% while broker/wholesale shrank -2.8%. We haven’t seen that large of a gap since February, as you can see from the table on page 1.
We’re not sure what’s causing the change, or even if it will continue, but we’ll be watching closely in the next few months.
Several lenders are seeing impressive growth in their businesses, with most of that coming on the retail side:
- American Advisors Group and Metlife have each grown retail more than 90% so far this year, while One Reverse, Generation and Genworth have all grown 20% or more
- Security One wholesale has grown 38.8% so far, while Urban is up 6.5% on a much larger base
- First National Bank of Layton has been steadily climbing the rankings this year, and reached the top 10 for the month of August with a 9th place ranking.
Click the image below to access the full report:
