While overall home equity conversion mortgage (HECM) endorsements were down -1.7% in July, the broker/wholesale business saw a 1.4% increase, according to the latest data compiled by Reverse Market Insight (RMI).
In contrast, retail endorsement volume decreased by -3.9%.
Over the past several years, retail has done better than wholesale as regulations and costs increased for the business, which may have reduced the capability for small brokers to thrive as independent companies.
However, the slight upward trend in the broker/wholesale channel in July doesn’t signal any big boom in business, as the increase is just month over month, says RMI President John K. Lunde.
“Endorsements are noisy enough from month to month that I wouldn’t make too much from the single digit changes in July for each channel,” Lunde says. “I’d say the rankings are probably the biggest reason people will check the report, as there wasn’t much of an overall industry trend to note.”
Not surprisingly, American Advisors Group maintains the top spot in the list of HECM originators for the month of July.
“AAG has a sustained a consistent marketing presence that is generating large volumes of loans for them,” Lunde says.
Following AAG in the top five are One Reverse Mortgage, RMS/Security One Lending, Liberty Home Equity Solutions and Proficio Mortgage Ventures.
Access the RMI report here.
Written by Emily Study
