HUD’s April 2020 HECM Endorsement Summary Report shows a total of just 1,601 endorsements, New View Advisors’ summary and analysis of which can be found here: NV Endorsement 2020_04. The impact of Coronavirus is undoubtedly the culprit of the slowdown. Lending activities have stalled meaningfully. The secondary market for the HMBS program has stabilized during the past month, but nobody is expecting the market to return to pre-pandemic execution any time soon. Back-end liquidity remains a concern for the industry. Time will tell whether April’s low endorsement count will be overshadowed by new opportunity to provide HECM loans to seniors, those most affected by Covid-19.
Geographically the slowdown is widespread. Notably, many major field offices on the west coast recorded endorsements less than half of counts from the previous month. For example, San Francisco and Seattle had 55 and 49 endorsements compared to 137 and 126 respectively in March. Salt Lake City and Denver saw drastic declines as well, with endorsements dropping to 56 and 132 in April, down from 109 and 247 in March. Numbers in southern locales are more mixed. Miami only had 29 endorsements compared to March’s 80, while Houston had 44 versus March’s 47.
Several top originators stand out in the decline of endorsements. Synergy One Lending, Open Mortgage, High Tech Lending, and Cherry Creek Mortgage all had zero endorsements for the month. Reverse Mortgage Funding and Liberty Home Equity Solution saw their endorsement count decline by 91% and 70% month-over-month, respectively.
The March Endorsement Snapshot Report is now available on HUD’s website. This report does not show notable changes in HECM endorsement volume because it is released with a one-month lag. Next month’s report will likely be more illuminating.
New View Advisors continues to offer its Who Buys What From Whom (WBWFW) report as part of this endorsement report subscription. The report compiles publicly available Ginnie Mae dollar volume data to show which HMBS issuers buy HECMs from which lenders. The WBWFW report includes:
1. Top Originators – a ranking by original HECM UPB of all lenders over the last twelve months
2. WBWFW – an alphabetical cross-reference between every lender and the HMBS issuer that securitizes its loans
3. Top 100 Trends – a breakdown of loan sales by month, by Top-100 lender, by HMBS issuer.
Edited samples from the WBWFW report are at the end of our endorsement summary. These reports together provide accurate insight for sales and marketing teams to learn just who’s buying what from whom. The dataset is more complete and timely than what endorsement analysis alone can show.
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