Posts Tagged ‘Genworth’
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.
We’ve known for months that Wells Fargo’s exit would have a major impact on HECM endorsement totals, with the expectation that all else being equal Wells’ huge retail market share would impact that side of the industry more directly.
October gave us reason to doubt that expectation, with the first half of Wells volume decline coinciding with a larger drop in wholesale/TPO volume than retail/direct. November brought us full circle as the second half of Wells volume decline saw wholesale/TPO rise to the challenge of replacing the former market leader.
Total endorsements were virtually unchanged in November, but wholesale/TPO grew 22.7% while Retail/direct dropped -11.8%. This stunning disparity brought wholesale/TPO share of the total market to the highest level in over a year at 42.5%.
From a lender perspective, there was plenty to cheer about on the leaderboard, as all but 2 of the 8 largest active lenders (ex Wells & BofA) showed gains in the month, with One Reverse and Security One being the only decliners. Metlife and Genworth both saw volume rise by triple digits.
November also saw big volume increases for some lenders outside the top 10, as Money House, iReverse and Cherry Creek all saw increases over 100% from October. Be sure to check page 4 to see where your company placed among the top 100 originators in November!
Click the image below to access the full report:
We’ve known for some time now that Wells Fargo’s endorsement numbers would drop dramatically as we headed toward the end of the year – now we have our first month’s view of the industry ex Wells.
HECM endorsements for October were down -16.8% to 4,653, the lowest total since the industry bottomed out in May 2010 from the first principal limit reductions. Wells Fargo wasn’t totally absent from October’s endorsements, with 787 loans still good for second place behind Metlife, but that’s probably more bad news than good.
We’re almost sure to break last year’s bottom next month as Wells volume declines further, and if other lenders can’t pick up some of the loans Wells isn’t doing, we could be looking all the way back to July 2005 for the last time monthly endorsements were under 4,000.
What is more surprising than the Wells decline, which has been expected, is the relative weakness of several other lenders in the month. Metlife, Urban, Generation, and Security One all declined in October. The aggregate decline of these 5 lenders is slightly larger than the total industry decline, while One Reverse, Genworth, AAG and Reverse Mortgage USA helped stem the tide.
These numbers include TPO business under the new HUD system, so we’ll have a better read for retail/broker/TPO trends next month when we can dissect further in our HECM Originators report. For now, we can simply observe that so far, the industry does not seem to be making up for the branch distribution network losses of BofA and Wells.
Click on the image below for this month’s report.
