In a little more than a year, five companies have held the volatile title of biggest reverse mortgage wholesaler. It was the first time at the top for the latest leader.
Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., continued to dominate overall reverse mortgage lending — with 1,787 retail and wholesale units closed in February. Production at the biggest originator of home-equity conversion mortgages, however, slowed from 1,841 in January.
The volume statistics were reported by Reverse Market Insight.
Not far behind was Bank of America, N.A., where government-insured reverse volume fell to 1,132 from the previous month’s 1,288. BofA said in February that it is exiting reverse mortgage lending.
MetLife Bank followed with 903 closed HECMs in February, then 637 at Genworth Financial Home Equity and 556 at Urban Financial Group.
As a group, retail HECM originators closed 4,075 loans in February, edging up from 4,049 units the prior month and better than 3,124 a year earlier.
But wholesale HECM lenders managed a bigger improvement, pushing volume up to 2,805 from January’s 2,413. However, the wholesale channel fell short of the 3,890 HECM closed in February 2010.
Among wholesale originators, Genworth emerged as the biggest HECM lender. Wholesale originations jumped to 547 reverse mortgages — more than any other wholesaler during February and the first time Genworth held the top spot based on the oldest data available from 2008. Genworth closed 359 HECMs through its wholesale channel in January.
Genworth’s reign among reverse wholesalers is likely to be short-lived based on prior volatility; since the beginning of last year, the title has been held by MetLife, BofA, Urban and Generation.
February’s No. 2 HECMÂ wholesaler was MetLife, which funded 459 loans, lower than 533 the prior month.
After that was Urban’s 457, Generation’s 397 and BofA’s 355.
