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Wells Fargo: 2-24
It is the strangest thing to see the former reverse giant Wells Fargo’s HECM endorsements drop their Rank from #2 lender to #24 this month. Genworth made some big strides moving up from #6 to #3 while New Day Financial broke into the top ten. Expect to see familiar names in the top ten for some time as marketshare is solidified in the coming months.
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The endorsement numbers for November 2011 make it clear that it is unlikely that the total endorsements for this calendar year will reach 70,000.
We are not only seeing a changing of who will be the key players in the industry but also a change in what are the principal business activities of those leaders. For example, Wikipedia describes Genworth as a global financial security firm, MetLife as one of the largest provider of insurance products and employee benefit programs, and finally Knight Capital (the parent of Urban) as a global financial services firm. Like Wells Fargo and Bank of America had similar business concerns, these three should have similar interests. Then there is One Reverse part of Quicken loans which primarily originates forward mortgages. The next three are all primarily reverse mortgage lenders.
The leadership of the industry once again is primarily in the hands of those with diversified business interests of which reverse mortgages are a minor part. It could take another decade or more until the leadership of the industry is in the hands of businesses which are primarily reverse mortgage lenders.
How long will it take before we once again see 114,600 endorsements in one fiscal year? Based on curent trends it is unlikely to occur before the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016; some are estimating even longer.
With MetLife taking the position it is on its financial assessment underwrite, it will be interesting to watch the impact of that decision on its endosement count. The MetLife decision could mean we have an industry leader which averages less than 1,000 endorsements per month this fiscal year.
No lender seems prepared to challenge MetLife as the number one lender in endorsement production this fiscal year.