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The Department of Housing and Urban Development on Oct. 8 revised its total HECM endorsement numbers for fiscal year 2008 to 110,754 loans, according to HUD spokesman Lemar Wooley.

The new number is 1,400 fewer loans than the HECM Endorsement Summary Report released by HUD on Oct. 1, which includes loans insured through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. Volume was still more than the 107,558 HECMs endorsed last fiscal year.

On Oct. 2, Federal Housing Commissioner Brian Montgomery, assistant secretary for housing, announced at the Mortgage Bankers Association's Fall Reverse Mortgage Lending Conference that HUD had another record year with 160,000 HECM loans. Later that day, he clarified to The Reverse Mortgage Report that the total was 156,000.

According to the most recent FHA Outlook report, 156,000 represented the projected number of applications for fiscal year 2008 as of Sept. 15. The FHA had actually received 138,413 applications as of Sept. 15.

Wooley said Meg Burns, director of HUD's Office of Single Family Program Development, claims the difference between Montgomery's numbers and the more recent, lower number was her fault. "She says she put the number in the speech and simply took it from the wrong category," Wooley stated in an email.