Two reverse mortgage lenders saw their best months ever for production in January, with other top reverse mortgage lenders taking the opportunity to ramp up volume during the month.
Security One Lending and Genworth Financial Home Equity Access both saw more than 25% growth over the course of January, marking their best months in history, according to the latest data report from Reverse Market Insight. The industry overall saw an 11.6% increase to 5,175 endorsements—the highest number since September.
Two other lenders saw double digit growth as well on the retail side: American Advisors Group posted a 23.4% increase and Generation Mortgage picked up a 17.2% gain.
“If your New Years resolution was to produce more loans in 2012, then you had lots of company along for the ride,” RMI wrote in its monthly retail report. The downside, however, was that October through December saw notable declines, RMI wrote.
The January Top-5 for includes MetLife at No. 1, followed by One Reverse Mortgage, Genworth, Urban and Generation. AAG, Security One, First National Bank, Cherry Creek and Reverse Mortgage USA round out the Top-10 for the month. The trailing 12-month endorsement picture still includes Wells Fargo and Bank of America, however, so it will take time before a true, new, Top-10 will emerge.
“We still have some time before these fall out of top 10 list on our reports,” says John Lunde, RMI co-founder and president.
Regionally, RMI reports that several regions saw substantial growth. Salt Lake City grew more than 50% year-over-year while the Caribbean region, including Puerto Rico, saw a 26.9% volume increase.
But no trend does one month make.
“Given the weakness we’ve seen in applications, I don’t see January as an indication of a new trend of higher volume,” Lunde says. “We’d have to see a turn higher in applications over a couple months to expect anything similar from endorsements.”
View the RMI January HECM Lenders report.
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
