No HECMs were endorsed in October, so November’s figures are inflated relative to a normal month due to the delays resulting from the government shutdown. With that said, we are assuming Nov includes 2 months of data and thus halving November totals for purposes of this commentary but you can see the raw figures in the PDF linked below.
HECM endorsements grew 12% in December to 2,186 loans compared to the Oct/Nov average, confirming that the entire endorsement backlog was cleared last month, or at least we’re back to relative normal (and Oct/Nov were the two weakest months of the year on average).
While our report shows declines for all 10 regions since the code is just looking at the raw November figures, in fact all 10 grew relative to their Oct/Nov average:
- SE/Caribbean jumped 26.9% to 512 loans, and top place for the single month of December!
- Rocky Mountain added 15.7% to 181 loans
- Southwest gained 15.4% to 228 loans
- Midwest rose 13.7% to 216 loans
The top 10 lenders were much more varied, with just 5 reporting gains (and sharply divergent levels at that):
- Plaza rocketed 43.2% to 53 loans, bouncing back to their typical level before the shutdown
- South River bounced 42.6% to 87 loans
- Liberty increased 40.9% to 105 loans
Click the image below for the full report.
