The departure of a major player had a major impact on the monthly production of government-insured reverse mortgages. The decline hit both retail and wholesale origination channels.
Out of the 3,847 home-equity conversion mortgages endorsed by the Federal Housing Administration during July, 2,143 were originated through the retail channel.
Retail HECM production tumbled from 2,821 units in June. The decline was even more dramatic compared to July 2011, when FHA endorsed 3,352 retail-originated HECMs.
Reverse Market Insight reported the numbers on Tuesday.
The 28 percent decline in wholesale HECM originations exceeded the 24 percent drop in retail activity, with wholesale production falling to 1,704 from July’s 2,361. Wholesale activity was also down from July 2011, when volume came in at 2,159 HECMs.
Declines in both channels reflected the wind down in process at MetLife Bank, N.A., where total HECM production sank to 250 from 1,246 in June.
But recently reported data from Reverse Market Insight indicates that total HECM volume for the industry was up 7 percent in August.
Including government-insured reverse mortgage activity and proprietary business, Urban Financial Group was the biggest lender in July. The No. 1 ranking came despite that Urban’s activity slipped to 702 units from June’s 754.
Generation Mortgage Co. pushed total production higher to 499 HECMs from 424 a month earlier — landing it in the No. 2 overall spot.
After that was 401 at One Reverse Mortgage LLC, 268 at American Advisors Group and 261 at Security One Lending.
Based only on proprietary production, Urban again led the pack with 404 loans. Generation was next with 239 units, then Sun West Mortgage Co. Inc.’s 146, Genworth’s 129 and Security One’s 30.
