March bounced back from the short February, rising 16.3% to 2,117 loans, although that remains below every month since August (if we average Oct/Nov due to the shutdown). That continues the theme of weakness in HECM endorsements we touched on last month, and we believe the more competitive and non-FHA reverse mortgage market is the primary contributor.
We still don’t have comprehensive data there, but what we can piece together looks like the growth in unit volume has been almost entirely in the proprietary products for several years, particularly when we exclude the HECM refinance waves from 2018-2022.
But enough about the loan data we can’t publish, and on to the HECM data we can.
Of the 10 regions, 9 rose in March and 4 by more than the overall rate:
- Rocky Mountain rose 33.8% to 178 loans
- NW/Alaska added 33.1% to 165 loans
- NY/NJ increased 33% to 133 loans
- Mid-Atlantic gained 32.5% to 159 loans
The top 10 lenders saw 8 increase on the month:
- Goodlife/TMAC bounced back 55.1% to 107 loans
- Finance of America jumped 24.7% to 454 loans
- South River rose 18.8% to 82 loans
Click the image below for the full report.
