Closings & New Applications Both Down 11% in November As Lenders Strategize For Winter Months

BY RICH SWERBINSKY, PRESIDENT & COO OF THE MORTGAGE COLLABORATIVE

Volume (and productivity) continued to trend downward in November for the national network of lender members of The Mortgage Collaborative that submit data to TMC Benchmark. Closed loan production (in units) fell 11% during the month when compared with the month prior.
 
New applications taken also dropped by 11% month-over-month after dropping 7.0% and 12.4% the two months prior.
 
The product mix on new closed loan production trended towards more non-conventional products with that share of closed loan production at a 2021 high of 7% in November. Conventional products represented 74% of closed loan units with government products coming in at 19%.
 
The purchase/refinance mix trended slightly more purchase month over month, with purchases accounting for 62% of all closings. Here's the purchase share we've seen in TMC Benchmark the last six months:
 
June 2021: 65%
July 2021: 67%
August 2021: 61%
September 2021: 61%
October 2021: 61%
November 2021: 62%
 
Operational efficiency waned in October for the TMC network to its lowest levels since 2019 and we saw efficiency fall even further in November. The number of closed loan units closed per full-time processor dropped to 9.4 in November versus the 10.1 October total. Closed loan units per full-time underwriter dropped to 28.6 from 30.9 the month prior. Closed loan units per full-time closer plummeted again to 26.7 from 33.3 (dropped from 37.0 to 33.3 last month). The average loan originator closed 4.8 units in November, down from 5.3 in October. LO comp came in at an average of 94.8, up 1.5 bps from last month's 94.5 total.
 
Average annual compensation paid to operational staff continued to fall in November as well, with average annual comp paid to FTE processors seeing the biggest drop, going from $53,400 to $50,400 this month. Underwriter annual comp fell to $83,500, $8,000 lower than where it was two months earlier. Average annual comp paid to closers dropped slightly from $55,500 to $55,200.
 
The average "app date to clear to close date" dropped to 41.0 days in November. Let's take a look at how this number has trended throughout the course of the last year:
 
December '20- 47.4
January '21 - 47.9
February '21 - 43.1
March '21 - 42.8
April '21 - 45.7
May '21 - 43.8
June '21 - 41.8
July '21 - 43.2
August '21 - 42.5
September '21 - 42.3
October '21 - 42.6
November '21 - 41.0
 
The average cost per closed loan unit our members paid for their loan origination system (LOS) came in at $113 in November, down $10 from the month prior, likely representing lenders changing LOS providers. The average cost per closed loan unit for our members point-of-sale (POS) system was $50 in November and $85 for their CRM.
 
53% of this month's participants in TMC Benchmark were depositories and 47% were IMB's. 38% originate under $500M a year in annual volume, 22% originate between $500M-$1B, and 40% originate over $1 billion per year in annual production.