Although the monthly origination of government-insured reverse mortgages has fallen, the decline has been more noticeable for proprietary production.
Retail originators were responsible for 1,944 of the 3,520 home-equity conversion mortgages endorsed by the Federal Housing Administration during August.
Retail activity slowed from the prior month, when 2,319 HECMs were endorsed.
Reverse Market Insight delivered the data.
The decline was even more severe when compared with the 3,125 FHA-insured reverse mortgages originated through the retail channel in August 2013.
The pace of HECM endorsements also downshifted for the wholesale channel, dropping to 1,306 from 1,772 in July and 2,248 in August 2013.
Among the 10-biggest proprietary reverse mortgage lenders, originations were down a quarter between July and August.
Compared to August 2013, proprietary business slid 57 percent.
But HECM volume at those same companies was down just 20 percent from a month earlier and 36 percent from a year earlier — suggesting that FHA volume has been more resilient.
Urban Financial Group topped August 2014’s list of proprietary reverse mortgage lenders, closing 122 transactions — though that was fewer than the 171 closed a month earlier.
But activity increased to 91 units from 64 in July at Cherry Creek Mortgage Co., landing the lender in the No. 2 proprietary spot.
After that were 72 loans funded at Liberty Home Equity Solutions Inc., 68 at American Advisors Group and 64 at Security One Lending/RMS.
