It has been almost two years since the Federal Housing Administration has endorsed as many home-equity conversion mortgages as it did last month. A unit that was acquired by Ocwen Financial Corp. has ascended to the top spot and turned in record monthly production.
HECM originations from all mortgagees totaled 5,840 reverse mortgages during March. The last time that government-insured reverse mortgage production was this high was in June 2011, when 5,857 HECMs were endorsed by FHA.
In February, reverse mortgage lenders generated 4,833 HECM endorsements.
Reverse Market Insight reported the monthly data.
During the first three months of 2013, there have been 15,862 HECMs endorsed. Since its fiscal-year 2013 began on Oct. 1, 2012, FHA has endorsed 27,955 loans.
In March 2012, FHA insured 4,381 reverse mortgages.
Last month, there were 398 active HECM lenders, off from the 412 that were active a year ago.
March’s most active HECM lender was Liberty Home Equity Solutions Inc., where business shot up to 857 units from 681 in February. It was the highest volume on record for the business during any month since it first appeared on the HECM report in 2010.
Liberty was known as Genworth Financial Home Equity Access Inc. before a deal was reached in October 2012 for Ocwen to acquire the unit. Ocwen disclosed Wednesday that the acquisition has been completed.
No. 2 last month was Security One Lending, which originated 676 HECMs, off from 723 in February. An agreement was announced in January for Walter Investment Management Corp. to acquire Security One.
American Advisors Group took the third spot in March with 514 HECMs insured in March, then One Reverse Mortgage LLC’s 468 endorsements and Urban Financial Group’s 334 units.
