On a month-over-month basis, proprietary reverse mortgage lending turned in the biggest gains, while it was government-insured activity that was stronger compared to a year earlier. The wholesale channel outperformed the retail channel on both counts.
Retail originations accounted for 2,789 of the revised 5,054 total home-equity conversion mortgages endorsed by the Federal Housing Administration during January.
Retail activity picked up from the final month of last year, when FHA endorsed 2,594 HECMs, but diminished from the first month of 2013, when volume was 3,033 loans.
The data was reported by Reverse Market Insight.
On the wholesale lending side, HECM endorsements jumped to 2,265 from 1,629 in December 2013. In January 2013, FHA endorsed 2,151 reverse mortgages.
While total HECM endorsements were up 24 percent between December and January, proprietary reverse mortgage production shot up 52 percent during the same period.
But compared to January 2013, HECM volume inched up 2 percent while proprietary activity declined 20 percent.
Including HECMs and proprietary production, Security One Lending/RMS was the biggest reverse mortgage lender in January with 1,145 loans closed. Volume soared from just 797 units a month earlier.
No. 2 American Advisors Group generated 798 in reverse mortgage originations, up from 668 in December.
Next was Urban Financial Group, where production soared to 716 in January from the prior month’s 421 loans.
One Reverse Mortgage LLC came in fourth with 470 loans closed, more than December’s volume of 376.
No. 5 was Generation Mortgage Co., with reverse mortgage originations leaping to 381 units in January from 193.
Looking at just proprietary reverse mortgages, Urban Financial topped the list in January with 365 loans.
Security One closed 191 proprietary loans, followed by Generation Mortgage’s 155, Liberty Home Equity’s 92 and Cherry Creek Mortgage Co.’s 86.
