CRMP: Across the Kitchen Table Setting Roots At V.I.P. Mortgage, he found a company with a commitment to family, a mission of doing what’s best for the client and a small reverse mortgage setup. In 2012, Mary Nelson switched from medical research to reverse mortgages. She jokes that she wished she had paid more attention to the calls she heard her husband making over the years, but she learned quickly. He was the loan officer, and she was the processor. In 2013, Tim Nelson became Arizona’s first CRMP. The credential elevated his credibility with financial planners, he says. “If I’m going to be the expert, I wanted to have that designation to go with it,” he explains. “When I went out to talk to financial planners, the CRMP would make it clear that this is my passion and that we can coordinate nicely.” Building the Business By building the reverse mortgage division, he found he was helping V.I.P. Mortgage diversify through his relationships with financial planners. They had long been referring their younger clients to V.I.P. Mortgage’s forward loan officers. With Tim Nelson on board, those same financial planners could refer their clients 62 and older for consideration of reverse mortgages. Before long, he couldn’t handle the volume of reverse mortgage opportunities coming in, so he started hiring reverse mortgage loan officers he knew. Mary Nelson stepped up as a processor for them, as well. One day, they went hiking, and she asked, “Why don’t we look at becoming closed-loan sellers?” With a “go for it” from the V.I.P. Mortgage owner, they expanded the team, adding capabilities for underwriting, processing, closing and selling to investors. “Slowly but surely, I became operations manager,” she says. Tim Nelson stayed on the sales side. It was a monumental change with a steep learning curve, and NRMLA became a partner in the journey. “We spend our time educating, educating, educating the consumers and the referral partners,” Tim Nelson says. “Because the product is misunderstood, there’s a lot of education. NRMLA also needed to educate us on how compliance works and how to become a closed-loan seller. NRMLA’s support allowed us to become experts in creating this little business at V.I.P. Mortgage. We do everything separately from traditional loan officers. Our business is self-contained. It’s us, with our team.” Mary Nelson adds, “The knowledge and information we got through NRMLA is priceless.” Earning Her CRMP With all that was going on, Mary Nelson decided in 2016 to earn her CRMP. “I need that knowledge,” she thought. “I need all the compliance in the back end. I need to get that education and have that credibility behind me as the operations manager.” Team Nelson now comprises nine loan officers and seven operations staff. They service their share of last-resort borrowers, but a good portion of the business supports homebuyers and retirement strategy clients. “We cover all the different needs out there, from the borrower who’s going to lose their home to the borrower who’s trying to find their forever home but can’t afford it without a reverse mortgage, or the savvier borrower looking to work with a financial planner to make this one of the legs of their retirement plan,” Mary Nelson says. Even amid growth, Tim Nelson noticed recently that in-house referrals usually came only from forward loan officers whose clients asked about reverse mortgages. As Mary Nelson put it, forward loan Tim and Mary Nelson have built a team at V.I.P. Mortgage that presents the reverse mortgage as a viable option for their clients. CRMP continued on page 16 REVERSE MORTGAGE / JULY-AUGUST 2024 15
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