Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) endorsements continued their slow decrease in September, dropping by 1.75% from August at 3,937 loans.
The full report [1] shows that this is the first time the HECM volume has fallen below 4,000 since the volume peaked in May. The volume seen in September is still much higher than the HECM volume reported from January through April of 2020.
Despite the overall drop in HECM endorsements, one out of the 10 United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regions saw an increase in volume this September. The Mid-Atlantic region increased to 191 loans--a 13% increase from the previous month.
Two regions, the Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions, showed no change in HECM volume during the month of September.
The report also shows that “half of the top 10 lenders had improved endorsements” in September. Open Mortgage increased to 236 loans, having the largest percentage increase of 32.6%. Finance of America Reverse and Liberty Reverse Mortgage also showed an uptick in HECM volumes. Finance of America Reverse increased by 23.9% to 394 loans and Liberty Reverse Mortgage went up 6.7% with 256 loans.
HMBS issuance totaled $883 million in September, according to newviewadvisors.com [2]. This new production of HMBS is likely due to record-low interest rates as well as lower default rates and the reemergence of proprietary loans.
$7.6 billion in HMBS has been issued in 2020 so far, which is set to surpass 2019’s total of $8.3 billion. It might still be possible for the total issuance to reach 2017’s record of $10.5 billion by the end of this year.
The production of original new loan pools in September was around $693 million, which shows an increase from $666 million in August.
While the reverse mortgage market is booming now, this may change soon as the economy’s conditions shift.