After recovering in June from a four-month decline in overall industry performance, July gave lenders a reason for further optimism in 2010.

According to Reverse Market Insight’s Wholesale Leaders Report for July 2010, total endorsement for retail and broker/wholesale lenders grew 10.8% for the month. With both channels continuing to grow from the previous month, July’s numbers indicate the first consecutive month over month growth for the industry since July 2009.

Of wholesale lenders, MetLife remained the top performer of in July with 668 units, followed by Genworth Financial with 312 units.  Rounding out the top five were Bank of America with 301 units, Urban Financial with 285 units, and Generation Mortgage with 283 units.

When looking at retail/wholesale as one entity, RMI’s report shows that three lenders in particular are responsible for July’s unit growth alone generating 97% of the unit increase for the month.  Genworth Financial’s endorsements grew 228% from June to July, increasing from 317 to 581 units. Metlife and Wells Fargo also experienced significant growth, with 85% and 37% increases respectively.

Since wholesale endorsements dropped a staggering 26% in May, retail has led wholesale in unit endorsements. But after reaching a critical low point of 4,551 total units in May 2010, both retail and broker/wholesale picked up with double-digit growth in June.

However, only the retail segment maintained this rate or growth into July, increasing 15.8% (458 units) compared to broker/wholesale’s volume growth of just 4.9% (117 units) for the month. Clearly, the retail sector has continued to recover at a much faster rate than broker/wholesale, a trend that could indicate a future strain on broker/wholesale in upcoming months as well as more market opportunities for retail lenders and larger lending institutions such as Genworth, Metlife and Wells Fargo.

Written by Laura Green