Analytics firm RiskSpan has added reverse mortgage data to the library of records available on its RS Edge Platform.
The company said it will use more than a half a billion records from Ginnie Mae in an effort to form critical analysis of the reverse mortgage market.
RS Edge is an SaaS platform that integrates normalized data, predictive models and complex scenario analytics for clients in capital markets, commercial banking and insurance.
Platform users will now be able to drill down to view snapshot and historical HECM data, and they’ll be able to benchmark the data against their own portfolio and leverage it to develop enhanced credit models, the company said.
RiskSpan has been collating data on the reverse mortgage market’s potential in partnership with National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association since 2000, generating the quarterly Reverse Mortgage Market Index.
Most recently, the index revealed that home equity for homeowners 62 and older grew to $6.82 trillion in Q1 2018.
Bernadette Kogler, RiskSpan’s founder and CEO, said it is this growth and the company’s interest in monitoring the impact of changes to the HECM program made by the Federal Housing Administration that spurred RiskSpan’s decision to delve further into the space.
“Changing demographics coupled with low retirement savings for the same population support reverse mortgage programs. We have also seen an increased interest from both investors (asset managers) as well as originators who appear to be positioning themselves for launching private programs,” Kogler said, noting that the uptick in private products is likely a reaction to FHA program changes.
Kogler said RiskSpan seeks to monitor the mortgage market and associated risks.
“With the exit of the large banks several years back, there is a concentration of counter-party risk with non-depository institutions who have varying degrees of financial strength," Kogler continued. "We know that FHA has made several program changes to mitigate risk and we plan to study the impact, if any, on delinquencies and defaults from FHA program changes.”
