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Note 7 - Mortgage Loans Held for Sale

12 Months Ended

Oct. 31, 2023

Loans, Notes, Trade and Other Receivables Disclosure [Text Block]

7. Mortgage Loans Held for Sale

Our wholly owned mortgage banking subsidiary, K. Hovnanian American Mortgage, LLC (“K. Hovnanian Mortgage”) originates mortgage loans, primarily from the sale of our homes. Such mortgage loans are sold in the secondary mortgage market within a short period of time of origination. Mortgage loans held for sale consist primarily of single-family residential loans collateralized by the underlying property. Loans held for sale are recorded at fair value with the changes in the value recognized in the Consolidated Statements of Operations in “Financial services” revenue. We currently use forward sales of MBS, interest rate commitments from borrowers and mandatory and/or best-efforts forward commitments to sell loans to third-party purchasers to protect us from interest rate fluctuations. These short-term instruments do not require any payments to be made to the counterparty or purchaser in connection with the execution of the commitments.

At October 31, 2023 and 2022, $127.7 million and $92.5 million, respectively, of mortgage loans held for sale were pledged against our mortgage warehouse lines of credit (see Note 8). We may incur losses with respect to mortgages that were previously sold that are delinquent and which had underwriting defects, but only to the extent the losses are not covered by mortgage insurance or the resale value of the home. The reserves for these estimated losses are included in “Financial services” liabilities on the Consolidated Balance Sheets. At October 31, 2023 and 2022, we had reserves specifically for 10 and 14 identified mortgage loans, respectively, as well as reserves for an estimate of future losses on mortgages sold but not yet identified to us.

The activity in our loan origination reserves in fiscal 2023 and 2022 was as follows:

	*Year Ended*
	*October 31,*
(In thousands)	*2023*		*2022*

Loan origination reserves, beginning of period	$	1,795	$	1,632
Provisions for losses during the period		187		181
Adjustments to pre-existing provisions for losses from changes in estimates		31		(18	)
Loan origination reserves, end of period	$	2,013	$	1,795