February 23, 2012
We’ve been fighting off a nasty series of bugs these past 2 weeks, so we’ll keep our intro short this week.
The final tally for the year comes in at 68,566 loans, down -5.7% from last year and capping off 3 consecutive years of industry volume declines. The best to be said for that trend is simply that the bar keeps getting lower for growth and 70,000 units only looks good from below.
Nevertheless, there have been some areas bucking that trend and this year was no exception. We’ve written about Saint George, UT, which continues to top all 4 MCA growth tables on the bottom of page 2. Texas, North Carolina, Philadelphia, and Baltimore have also been profiled in past reports and continue to appear on our lists of top states and cities by volume.
Click on the image below to view the full HECM Trends report for this month.
February 6, 2012
December’s HECM Originators report brings us final 2011 rankings for both retail/broker/TPO originators and wholesalers, as well as the best view yet of how monthly rankings will fare in the brave new world post Wells and BofA (combined volume in single digits for December).
Overall endorsements were down -1.8% from November, with the entire decline coming from the TPO/Wholesale side of the industry turning in a -4.4% performance. This isn’t a big surprise considering that TPO volume consistently under-performed retail/direct since May.
What’s perhaps even more important as we continue in 2012 is the trend in applications. In the past we’ve focused on the monthly effects of changes to lending limits, principal limits and lender exits, but for this year end chart we’ve focused on the theme of Wells/BofA/FF exits in 2011.
Case numbers issued (we use this interchangeably with applications) dipped in December to the lowest level since January 2010, but if we exclude the impact of Wells/BofA/FF it tells a different story. December’s total is right between May and June figures for surviving lenders, raising the question whether higher volumes from Aug-Nov were just the result of applications shifting from the exiting lenders in a one time surge. It would be much more positive for the industry if survivors fill the distribution gaps left by exiting lenders over the next few months and generate higher application volumes, but December merits concern for less rosy scenarios playing out.
As with any good year end ranking list, this one is filled with many successful companies bucking the trend of a down market so be sure to check pages 3 and 4 for final 2011 results for your company.
Click the image below to access the full report:
February 1, 2012
If your New Years resolution was to produce more loans in 2012, then you had lots of company along for the ride. January HECM endorsements totaled 5,175 loans, the highest level since September and up 11.6% from last month. On the pessimistic side, Oct-Dec are the only months lower than this total in the past 12, so it’s really a half glass of whatever perspective you’d like to see.
Volume was up all across the nation with the exception of New England dropping -8.8%. Rocky Mountain (28.2%) and Pacific/Hawaii (24.9%) fared particularly well, leading 6 of the 10 regions to double digit percentage growth. Rocky Mountain was also the only region to increase from January 2011, up 1.6% while the industry overall dropped -19.9%.
- Salt Lake City grew 50.7% from last January, powering the Rocky Mountain region totals
- Caribbean, which includes Puerto Rico, grew 26.9%
Among lenders, we saw 6 of the top 8 active lenders increase volume and 4 of those by double digit percentages:
- Security One led the way with a 27.9% increase
- Genworth saw a 26.1% increase
- Both companies posted their highest monthly total on record, although these numbers do include TPO business that wasn’t counted in historical numbers before 2011
- American Advisors (23.4%) and Generation Mortgage (17.2%) rounded out our double digit percentage growers for the month
Active lenders dropped significantly from last year, but that is almost entirely the result of FHA’s move to stop approving brokers which results in those companies not being counted in this total.
Click on the image below for this month’s report.
