3 Comments

1. 

   James E. Veale, CPA, MBT

   September 1, 2015 at 1:31 pm

   No one can deny August endorsements was the best we have seen in more than two years. We have finally seen three months in a row of endorsements of over 5,000. The last time that happened is when we had six months of over 5,000 endorsements. In both cases, endorsements never reached 6,000 in a single month.

   With yet one month to go, total fiscal year endorsements already exceed total endorsements for all of last year by 3.3% but do not expect endorsements for this fiscal to do better than being the third worst total for endorsements in the last decade. Also the total for this August was 76.6% higher than the total for August 2014.

   One very surprising result was to see the conversion rate go all the way down to 57.5%. That means that 42.5% of all applications which receive case number assignments fail to become endorsements. That is dreadful since only a very small percentage of the HECMs endorsed during August were subject to financial assessment.

   When it is unlikely we will reach 60,000 endorsements this fiscal year, we are a long way from returning to 100,000 endorsements. If our average growth rate is 6% annually, it will take over 9 fiscal years before we see 100,000 endorsements in a single fiscal year once again. That would put 15 years between the fiscal year we last had over 100,000 and the next one. Perhaps things came too easy in the last part of the aught decade. Time will tell.

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2. 

   The_Cynic

   September 1, 2015 at 1:50 pm

   Back in fiscal 2007, it took 110,335 applications with case numbers assigned to result in 107,626. Based on our current conversion rate of 57.548%, it would take 187,020 applications with case numbers assigned to reach that same 107,626 endorsements. That is almost a 77,000 difference.

   So the question becomes where our will conversion rate be by the end of next fiscal year when we will have seen over a year of HECMs endorsed which underwent financial assessment?

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3. 

   rmadviser

   September 1, 2015 at 2:10 pm

   Recently there has been a lot of recognition given to Longbridge but does its production warrant this notice?

   An article in Reverse Mortgage Daily grouped RMF, RFS, and Longbridge in an article recently. So in ranking of lenders where is Longbridge versus the other two? RMF is already in 6th place with 236 endorsements for the month. RFS had a more modest 87 endorsements in 11th place.

   Longbriddge on the other hand came tied for 94th place with just 4 endorsements. How can Longbridge be compared to RMF with its over 236 endorsements and solidly in the Top Ten lenders? Even RFS with its more modest 87 endorsements is in an entirely different league than Longbridge.

   It is not that there is any indication that there is trouble brewing at Longbridge but is their strategy for growth as relevant as that of the other two?

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