Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) endorsements dropped 18.8% to 4,671 loans in September, signaling the end of a three-month run of high volume inflated by the pre-Financial Assessment rush, according to the latest industry data tracked by Reverse Market Insight (RMI).
“Those rules went into effect all the way back in April for new case numbers issued, but given the lag times associated with funding and endorsing loans after case number issuance we’re just seeing the impact now,” RMI wrote in its analysis of the September data.
The nearly 19% decline was widespread, felt by nine of the top-10 regions tracked by RMI. The Rocky Mountain region was the only exception to the trend, though its HECM endorsements in September remained the same as August’s at 231 loans.
Falling the hardest in September were the Northwest/Alaska and Pacific/Hawaii regions, which saw their HECM endorsements drop 38.5% to 243 loans and 31.7% to 1,427 loans, respectively.
Meanwhile, the Southeast/Caribbean experienced the smallest decline in volume, with endorsements falling 3.2% in September to 902, from 932 loans in August.
HECM endorsement performance in terms of bucking the decline trend fared only slightly better among the top-10 reverse mortgage lenders, just two of which posted volume gains in September.
American Advisors Group (AAG) and Home Point Financial Corporation were the only two lenders that saw volume increase during the month, rising 1.6% and 38.6%, respectively.
View the RMI report.
Written by Jason Oliva
