Archive for the ‘Retail Leaders’ Category
It’s always more fun to report good news (since no one shoots the messenger in these cases!) and August continued a welcome trend higher in reverse mortgage business volumes. Endorsements were up 12.6% from July, again coming in ahead of increases in competition since the trough in May.
We also saw modest success in applications, coming in at 8,961 for the month of July. While that’s lower than June’s figure by 1.4%, there is a reason to be hopeful here. First, the updated chart with applications and endorsements (with timing adjusted 4 months for endorsements):
This first chart shows endorsement volumes following nicely along our application path, but the second chart shows a more optimistic trend in applications than the raw number suggests:
July had 2 fewer business days than June, which turns a -1.4% decline in the raw number to 8% growth in the per business day results. If we maintained the same pace in August (with 23 business days like June), then we would have been over 9,800 applications.
Lots of additional trend data and analysis is available in the full report by clicking the image below. Enjoy!
We’re a few days behind our usual schedule as we enjoyed a quick trip out to Dallas for Reverse Mortgage Day in Texas. As always, it was very well organized and if you were busy networking in the halls or didn’t attend, you can find our presentation on current trends in the reverse mortgage space here.
July saw another double digit increase in HECM endorsement volumes over June, up 11.3% to 5,901 loans. Still well off last year’s pace, but gaining traction as the application volume increases indicated a few months back.
- July’s strength was broad based, with the 8 higher volume regions all showing increases and only Rocky Mountain and Great Plains declining. Both of the decliners have consistently been the smallest volume regions anyway, so they didn’t slow the overall industry growth significantly.
- Competition increased in July although at a much slower rate (+3.5%) that continues to illustrate a trend toward the larger companies surviving best in this environment.
- Despite just 4 of the top 10 lenders increasing volume from June, the top 10 as a group grew faster than the overall market, up 15.1%. Triple digit jumps from Wells Fargo and Metlife led the way, with Genworth continuing its recent growth streak by almost doubling for the second month in a row.
- In spite of the continuing lower volume levels the industry is actually approaching a 2 year high in average monthly endorsements per lender, due entirely to the drastic reduction in competitors.
- Among the 81 markets tracked here, several large cities stand out for having the highest monthly productivity figures per lender (endorsements per lender): Houston, New York and San Francisco each are among the top markets year to date. Of course, if you can overcome the regulatory/licensing restrictions in North Carolina or the Caribbean, Greensboro and Puerto Rico are both off the charts…
We don’t talk too much about our paid client services in this space since we know most readers are just looking for a quick (free) update on the reverse mortgage market. For those of you who are looking to identify the top zip codes in your territory to target your marketing (seminars, mail, etc.), head over to our Retail & Brokers page to check out a new service we’re offering for just $20 per month: Sales Territory Scorecard.
Just tell us where you do business and start targeting your efforts where your sales and marketing efforts are most productive.
The full report is available by clicking the image below. Enjoy!
Most years you want to see some good news before you’re six months in, but given all the headwinds for the industry we’ll take our wins where we can get them. June marked the first growth in HECM endorsement volumes in 2010, finishing with 5,304 and up 16.5% from May’s dreadful levels. Sure, the absolute number is nothing to cheer about, but everyone is always in a better mood on the way up than the way down. Now if we can just avoid a major principal limit cut in October perhaps the trend will have some legs.
- June in many ways was a mirror image of May, with all 10 regions showing growth after declining last month. Of course, May was so low that it would be tough not to, so it’s also worth pointing out that an even 5 of the 10 regions were also above their April levels – although Mid-Atlantic just barely cleared that threshold by 1 loan.
- Houston and Shreveport continue to lead the way among metros, as they are the only 2 (of 81) showing growth year to date. Both are in the Southwest region, which has seen the smallest declines this year at -24.7%, with Northwest/Alaska at the other end of the scale, down -45%.
- And while we did see an increase in active lenders from last month, competition continues to fall faster and rise slower than volumes. You can see the resulting higher productivity levels per lender in the Endorsements per Lender chart on page 2, showing a positive trend now rising to our industry average for the past two years.
- There’s an astounding statistic on the chart below that as well: Over 1,000 lenders left the business in the first 6 months of 2010. While there were some 400 new lenders to partially offset that figure, there were still 655 fewer lenders YTD compared to Jan-Jun 2009.
- Each of the top 10 lenders was also up in June, evidencing a broad based market growth. Genworth in particular more than doubled their May figure and also turned in their strongest performance of the past twelve months. If you believe that large, brand name institutional lenders are important to this industry, then you’ll agree that it’s good to see Genworth growing retail again. Congrats to Jesse and team!
Drop us a line if you’re heading to Irvine for the NRMLA Roadshow and we’ll buy you a beer while you’re in our neck of the woods.
The full report is available by clicking the image below. Enjoy!
