While wholesale reverse mortgage activity is typically seen as a more volatile channel for loan volume compared to retail, this pattern was not consistently true in 2013, according to the most recent Reverse Market Insight newsletter on reverse mortgage originations.
“In periods of increasing volume wholesale goes up more than retail and in periods of decline wholesale takes the brunt of that as well,” RMI says. “It usually works that way for individual companies and we’ve seen this happen in the past as well.”
However, last year this only happened in four out of the past 12 months. In the other eight months, wholesale actually moderated volume swings in retail by either declining less in months where there wasn’t as much volume, or slower growth during months when volume did pick up.
“There are many possible reasons for this, not least of which is the less intense timing push for endorsing loans relative to funding that could render this more noise than signal, but looking at counts of companies and other metrics doesn’t lend an easy answer,” the newsletter continues.
Top lenders toward the end of 2013 include Liberty Home Equity Solutions, which overcame low volumes in September and October to reach second place with 702 loans. This puts them on track to end 2013 with the number one reverse mortgage volume ranking, says RMI.
American Advisors Group grabbed the top spot in November for the third month in a row with 736 loans.
View the HECM Originators report.
Written by Alyssa Gerace
