Government-insured reverse mortgages originated by wholesale lenders fell to the lowest level on record. Things have gotten so bad among reverse mortgage wholesalers that a company with less than a dozen monthly closings ranked among the five-biggest reverse mortgage wholesale lenders. But the retail channel saw a gain compared to a year earlier.
Based on originations through both retail and wholesale channels, more home-equity conversion mortgages were endorsed by the Federal Housing Administration for Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., than any other lender during September. Volume at Wells, which is winding down its reverse mortgage business, fell to 1,454 units from 1,683 in August.
The data was reported by Reverse Market Insight.
Close behind was MetLife Bank, where total HECM fundings climbed to 1,326 from August’s 1,130.
A distant third was Urban Financial Group’s 612 September endorsements, though that was still better than a revised 551 loans a month earlier. In its latest report, RMI revised Urban’s total production data for each of the past 12 months.
Generation Mortgage Co. followed with 522 HECMs originated in September, then One Reverse Mortgage LLC’s 413 closings.
Including business from all HECM lenders, retail originations slipped to 3,612 endorsements during September from 3,705 a month earlier. But retail production strengthened from 3,405 HECMs during the same month last year.
Wholesale fundings, meanwhile, fell to 1,972 endorsements from 2,099 in August and 2,558 in September 2010.
Wholesale HECM originations have never been this low based on the oldest available data from RMI dating back to April 2008.
By contrast, monthly wholesale production exceeded 5,000 units two years ago.
The volatile title of biggest HECM wholesaler went to Urban Financial, where wholesale business climbed to 268 loans from 199 in August.
Despite a huge decline at Generation — to 223 HECMs endorsed from 438 — the company landed in the No. 2 spot. But Generation relinquished the No. 1 title it held in August.
MetLife Bank trailed with 192 wholesale endorsements, off two units from August.
After that was Genworth’s 126 wholesale closings in September and Security One Lending’s 11.
