Proprietary reverse mortgage volume eclipses HECM production for the first time

New View Advisors this week released its Proprietary Reverse Mortgage Production Index for the first quarter of 2026, with the data showing that private-label loan products have grown to new heights.

The quarterly index provides an estimated dollar volume for newly originated proprietary reverse mortgages in the U.S. The company reported that from January through March, proprietary loan production totaled $953 million. This was up from $730 million in the prior quarter and more than double the volume of $470 million in Q1 2025.

The 30.6% gain in quarterly volume propelled the private-label market past the federally insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) market for the first time, New View reported. HECM volume for Q1 2026 was estimated at $875 million

For March alone, private-label originations totaled $344 million, compared to $260 million for the HECM market.

The index was sourced using data from public and private sources, including publicly available financial statements, rating agency reports and other sources related to securitizations.

New View noted that in its previous quarterly report, the proprietary loan share of the reverse mortgage market grew from 30% at the end of 2024 to 45% at the end of 2025. At the end of March, that share stood at 52%, with private-label loans benefiting from additional liquidity in the secondary market.

The company estimated that at the current pace, proprietary loan growth could propel industrywide volumes past $7 billion or $8 billion in 2026 — even without growth for traditional products.

HECM endorsements in 2025 were relatively flat, according to data compiled by Reverse Market Insight (RMI). And the top three U.S. lenders — Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, Finance of America and Longbridge Financial — maintained their control by accounting for 55.8% of the market. That was down slightly from 57.4% in 2024.

HECM business saw growth in March, RMI reported this week, up 16.3% from February to a total of 2,117 endorsements. But that figure was still less than any month since August 2025.

“We still don’t have comprehensive data there, but what we can piece together looks like the growth in unit volume has been almost entirely in the proprietary products for several years, particularly when we exclude the HECM refinance waves from 2018-2022,” RMI explained in commentary.

Lenders are moving to incorporate more technology for the origination of private-label reverse mortgages. Last week, REVERSE plus announced that it had integrated proprietary programs from Smartfi Home Loans into its ANALYZER Pro platform. The move is designed to give loan officers and brokers the ability to model HECM and proprietary loan scenarios in a single system, offering improved education for senior borrowers.

“Proprietary reverse mortgages represent a large portion of the senior home equity lending landscape,” Kim Smith, senior vice president of wholesale at Smartfi, said in a statement at the time. “Making our programs available within ANALYZER Pro gives originators a practical, hands-on way to learn our offerings and better understand how our Choice proprietary loan option can uniquely meet the needs of borrowers.”

Rising consumer demand and wider availability for private-label options also come at a time when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) are exploring ways to make HECM products and their accompanying secondary market liquidity more competitive.

The agencies held a comment period that ended in January and generated numerous responses from originators, servicers, trade groups and other stakeholders. While no decisions have been announced based on that feedback, it’s a storyline for the industry to follow closely in 2026.

“The HECM and HMBS programs do not inhibit the private sector. On the contrary, they provide a benchmark ‘target’ for private lenders to attain and exceed,” Andrew Draper, a reverse mortgage specialist at Community First National Bank, wrote in response to a question listed on HUD’s request for information.

“By establishing a federally backed standard, HUD encourages private sector innovation to provide specialized, competitive products that supplement the government’s baseline.”