Reverse Mortgages See Steep Monthly Pullback in September

Endorsements of home-equity conversion mortgages fell to a two-and-a-half year low in September, as lenders cautiously eye competing home-equity products , such as HELOCs, Reverse Market Insight found.

Total endorsement volumes dropped 43.5% to 3,235 from 5,727 in August, with numbers in all U.S. geographic regions trending downwards. Endorsements also fell on a monthly basis at each of the ten top HECM lenders. The last time numbers came in lower was in April 2020, during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, when the volume plummeted to 1,601.

At the same time that mortgage rates have climbed, reverse mortgage lenders find themselves facing a growing list of nonbank originators offering home-equity products . In efforts to drive business and counter diminished incentives for refi nance mortgages, several lenders, including loanDepot, Rithm Capital and Guaranteed Rate, signaled their intentions to roll out home-equity lines of credit this year, while alternative financing companies, Hometap and Point raised millions in investor capital as they grew their national footprint. Rocket Mortgage, the country’s top originator by volume, also introduced a home-equity loan this summer.

This article originally appeared on National Mortgage News. See the article here.