The state of the reverse mortgage activities at the beginning of 2025

Longbridge Financial CEO Chris Mayer also shared optimistic sentiments with RMD on this subject, in particular the extra interest in reverse mortgages in the Mortgage banking association (MBA) as a source of renewed optimism for forging stronger bonds between the two sectors of the mortgage industry.

“It is logical that if you are in the mortgage activities, you would like to serve people who have a third of the houses in the country, and it makes sense that MBA wanted to do that.

Longbridge also started the early part of the year by updating some of the conditions for his own ‘platinum’ product suite, which reduces the minimum required home value, and Larry Penn – CEO of Longbridge Parent Ellington Financial – revealed that the company is developing a new product.

“Longbridge actually works actively with some other partners to make some other products for seniors who may not be technically not inverted mortgages, but have many similar characteristics,” Penn said in the Ellington Q4 2024 profit call.

Mayer’s optimism was divided by Financing of America (FOA) Senior vice president of the retail trade James Mittleman, who said that stronger bonds with the forward side ‘can bring more customers to possibly inform [about reverse mortgages] Who may not have before, “said Mittleman in February.

Other lenders also want to put this integration into practice, including Fairway Independent MortGage Corp. In January, Fairway announced that the power that observes in his home -sharing conversion MortGage (HECM) for purchasing company, encourages the company “to extend his reverse mortgage channel by aggressive recruitment, strategic partnerships and […] Integration of his forward and reverse companies, “said it.

Mutual or Omaha Mortgage Also moves quickly and has become number 1 in the industry based on its HECM approval figures. It has so far consistently maintained that position up to and including 2025, but FOA has melted in its heels: only 18 loans separated the two lenders in February, according to RMI data.

Performance statistics

Speaking of those approval statistics, RMI President John Lunde told RMD that he feels that the company is in a slightly stronger place than he expected that it would be at the end of 2024.

“I would say that things are less soft at the moment than I might have expected a few months ago, such as at the end of the year,” said Lunde. “If you asked me where we would be for January and February, I would probably have guessed a little lower than where we ended up.”

In January HECM notes rose by 0.6% to 2,641 loans for the month. In February they fell somewhat by 6.1% to a total of 2,481, an improvement compared to the totals that were seen in the same month of 2023 and 2024, but still under the numbers of January.

But the lack of overall softness is an encouraging development, he said, and although lenders are working diligently to increase their volume, they still have to fight with the rates that are higher than the mortgage industry would in a broad lines that they are.

The increase that the industry saw in the 10-year-old CMT around the fall of last year led to believe that things will decrease more than they actually did in the early 2025.

“It is encouraging not to really see an important decline from that moment in Q4,” said Lunde. “February is always difficult, just because it’s such a short month, so I’m not worried about that.

Data, ‘Dealed question’

Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Reports about reverse mortgage statistics have been delayed and there is no indication of the agency about when or if those reports will return.

Since the transition to the Trump administration, various government reports and websites have changed to remove data that were previously accessible, although some of those old data has been restored In accordance with judicial orders or other department actions. But certain industrial-relevant FHA reports, including the HECM “Snapshot”, have not been updated Since October 2024.

Yet things are buzzing along. Although it cannot be expected that they will take a high belly with the rates they are, Lunde said that in other conversations with forward mortgage or real estate professionals he felt a ‘thaw’.

“People have waited and hope that things improve long enough that there is just a pent -up question, what I find interesting,” he said.