Lender volume presented on this report includes third party originations (TPO) of any company not FHA approved under their approved sponsor lender. As of this month this report has been re-named from “Retail Leaders” to better identify it as the ranking of HECM Lenders closing loans under their own FHA approval (regardless of whether a non-approved company took the applications). If you are looking for rankings of all HECM origination companies, please see these reports.
HECM endorsements rose 5.4% last month to 5,807 loans, although that was down 12.6% from last August. Comparisons to last year get a little bit easier in the next two months as Sep-Oct 2010 averaged just over 5,600 loans (compared to 6,645 in Aug 2010). But of course we’ll also see Wells Fargo’s exit keeping a lid on this year’s numbers over that same time period, as exhibited in the recent application downtrend.
On the bright side, nine of the ten regions we track was up in August, indicating a relatively broad based rise. Mid-Atlantic (13.4%) and New England (13.3%) showed the most growth, while Southeast/Caribbean (-1.9%) and Midwest (+1.8%) brought up the rear. Southeast/Caribbean continues to hold the volume crown by a hefty margin, although looking at the metro results shows that within the region the story is ‘anywhere but Florida’ in terms of volume growth.
From a year to date perspective, Rocky Mountain, Southwest and Great Plains are almost into double digit growth territory, continuing the theme we’ve previously highlighted of smaller volume areas catching up to traditional leaders like California and Florida.
Housekeeping Notes:
- The Wholesale Leaders report has been re-named “HECM Originators” to identify it as the best source of rankings of all companies originating HECM loans, regardless of FHA approval status. The first report under new format will appear week of 9/12.
- Industry Trends has been re-named “HECM Trends” in keeping with the above changes. First report will be issued week of 9/19.
Click on the image below for this month’s report.
