Chart of the Week
Every Friday, MBA's Chart of the Week provides commentary and analysis on a topic of interest for the industry. This comes from variety of data sources, including proprietary data from MBA's own surveys and studies, as well as from government agencies and other reliable sources of mortgage, housing, and economic data.
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Current Chart of the Week
In 2024, the Research Institute for Housing America (RIHA) published data which found that older Americans are remaining in their homes longer. Over the past decade, the homeownership rate among adults aged 70 and older has increased substantially. According to the 2024 American Community Survey, homeowners aged 55 and older owned 55 percent of all owner-occupied homes in the United States, with more than one-third owned by households headed by someone age 65 or older.
Coupled with this aging-in-place trend, 14 years of sustained house price appreciation have driven homeowners' equity to record levels. According to the Federal Reserve’s Financial Accounts, homeowners' equity has climbed to nearly $35 trillion, roughly four times its level in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis.
Seniors have several options for accessing this housing wealth while continuing to age in place. MBA's upcoming HELOC and Home Equity Lending in Workshop will explore two of these approaches. This week's MBA Chart of the Week focuses on another option, reverse mortgages, and examines annual reverse mortgage originations from 2018 through 2025 using data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).
HMDA data allows us to examine origination trends for both the Federal Housing Administration's Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program and proprietary reverse mortgage products offered by private lenders.
After averaging about 59,000 originations in both 2021 and 2022, reverse mortgage volume fell sharply by 57 percent to 25,312 loans in 2023. Of these, 23,538 (93.0 percent) were HECMs, and 1,774 (7.0 percent) were proprietary reverse mortgages.
While HECM originations increased modestly by 4.7 percent in 2024 and 0.7 percent in 2025, proprietary reverse mortgage originations grew much more rapidly, rising 81 percent and 118 percent over the same period. As a result, proprietary products accounted for 22 percent of all reverse mortgage originations in 2025, more than triple their 7 percent share in 2023 and well above the 14 percent share recorded in 2022, when 8,359 proprietary reverse mortgages were originated. Moreover, because proprietary reverse mortgages typically have larger loan balances, they accounted for nearly 40 percent of total reverse mortgage origination volume by dollar amount in 2025. **
For MBA members interested in these developments, the newly established Senior Mortgage Solutions Network provides a forum for discussing emerging trends, market opportunities, and business challenges related to senior-focused mortgage products. For more information about the network and its activities, visit MBA's website.
** HMDA data show $5.8 billion of originations for HECM in 2025. HMBS securitization data show about $4.0 billion in 2025. The difference is that HMDA reports the initial principal limit and HMBS is based on actual balances.
- Edward Seiler ([email protected]); Jon Penniman ([email protected])