The latest figures from HUD continue to show strong reverse mortgage demand.

For March, the Department reports that 12,204 applications for home equity conversion mortgages (HECMs) — HUD’s term for reverse mortgages.

During the same period, 9,663 reverse mortgages were actually insured by HUD.

So far in fiscal 2008 — the period that began October 1st — HUD has had 73,709 reverse mortgages applications, up 34 percent from 55,150 applications during the same period last year. However, it has endorsed 55,218 reverse loans so far this year, up only 4.1 percent over 2007.

Given the huge increase in applications it would not be surprising to see a far-larger number of HUD endorsements next month — assuming acceptance levels remain steady.

Also, given the apparent use of reverse mortgages as a device to lower monthly costs and pay off toxic loans, it would not be surprising to see even more applications during the next few months when compared with 2007.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 3:06 am and is filed under Reverse Mortgage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.