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The top 100 lenders for May were released by Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) World and Retirement Funding Solutions, and American Advisors Group topped the list with more than 800 loans.
The California-based lending company reportedly issued 853 loans in May, more than 600 loans than the closest company on the list, One Reverse Mortgage, LLC.
American Advisors Group has issued 4,146 loans so far in 2019 and accounts for 31.63% of the market share. The amount of loans issued so far in 2019 is a 24% decline year-over-year, according to the report.
The report added that several loan endorsements were delayed due to the government shutdown.
One Reverse Mortgage issued 238 loans in May and 1,124 in 2019, which is a 13.34% decrease from May 2018.
The total number of loans issued for the month was 2,697, and 13,523 for the year. Those numbers represent a 38.62% decline year-to-date.
The report also states that the number of loans issued for the month of April has witnessed a steady decline since 2015. Loans issued in the month has fallen from 4,273 in April 2015 to the reported number of 2,697 in 2019.
Reverse Mortgage Insights reported last month that HECM loan originations declined in March by 35.7%, with originations coming in a 2,573.
While retail HECMs declined 36.1% to 1,497 loans, the wholesale market stood at 1,076 loans registering a month-over-month decline of 35.1%.
The report indicated that the top 10 lenders in this segment all saw declines during the month "without the tailwind from loans built up during the government shutdown." The combined wholesale and retail volume among the top-10 lenders stood at 2,336 loans, a decrease from 3,567 loans originated in February 2019.
Since April 2018, these lenders originated a total of 30,281 loans. However many of the smaller lenders saw a spike in their HECM volumes during the month, according to the report, leading to a jump in their rankings among the top 100 HECM lenders.
HECM loans were also one of the issues highlighted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a recent Supervisory Highlights report on mortgage servicing on how lenders dealt with issues in the case of a deceased homeowner.
The report noted that when a homeowner with a HECM dies, his or her successor must pay the loan balance in full if he or she wishes to keep the home, or the home will be foreclosed. Successors may, however, file for extensions on the loan balance.
