After what appears to be a weather induced decline in application volume in January, the February total increased 10.2% to 8,149 applications. According to Reverse Market Insight's (RMI's) Industry Trends Report January 2011, application volume has been hovering around 8,000 units since November.
While this is a 22.7% increase over volume from a year ago, it is still floating below the 10,000 application level that RMI considers to be necessary to move endorsement volume into a recover and growth mode.
In terms of loan distribution for January, HECM Saver made up 4.3% of total endorsements. Given the time displacement between application and endorsement, RMI estimates that the Saver currently makes up about 10% of applications.
Year-over-year endorsement volume is still down by 15.2%, however, January 2010 marked the beginning of serious declines and should the current trend continue, endorsement volume should cross over to positive growth in February or March. This would put 2011 volume somewhere between 2009 and 2010.
Year Over Year Endorsement Trend
