pictured when I read the articles in this issue of Reverse Mortgage magazine. The cover story, Preparing for Now and the Future (p. 20), examines how companies have been working diligently to train forward LOs to add reverse mortgages to their portfolios. “There is a very good chance that a forward loan originator is going to be contacted by a previous customer who says, ‘Hey, I’m approaching retirement. I’m interested in learning more about a reverse mortgage. What can you tell me?’” Amy Smith, senior vice president of reverse support and training at Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp., tells writer Joel Berg in that article. “If they don’t have at least the information to speak about it as an option, then their borrower may go someplace else.” Some LOs have been working with forward and reverse mortgages for years, while others are just starting to work with reverse mortgage clients. Although he started in the mortgage industry decades ago, Chris Carr with Guild Mortgage only recently added reverse mortgages to his product mix. Like many skeptics, Carr acknowledges that his misunderstandings and biases kept him from working with the products before this past year. As more leads started to reach his desk, he decided to learn, taking advantage of Guild’s intense training opportunities that helped make him a convert. “I started to believe in the product,” he says in the article Spreading Reverses Through Forwards (p. 24). He also sought and obtained a reverse mortgage for himself. One of the leaders at Guild is Jim Cory, CRMP, managing director of reverse mortgages. Cory, who also is a vice chair of NRMLA, talks about Guild’s training in that same article, and he writes this issue’s Board Room column, too: Recruiting From Within (p. 6). Cory outlines how all LOs of forward and reverse mortgages could greatly benefit from expanding their product offerings, in particular learning about the HECM for Purchase. The HECM for Purchase product has recently been streamlined to be more like traditional mortgage products, which should make it easier for LOs to understand. And their real estate and financial planning contacts might be more willing to learn how to discuss these products with their clients if the LOs are more informed. “For too long, reverse mortgage originators and lenders have only pushed the traditional reverse mortgage,” Cory writes in the column. “Many of us have specialized in only doing the traditional reverse mortgage, sometimes having given up on the HECM for Purchase. It’s not a failure of the HECM for Purchase; it’s just the wrong salesperson selling through the wrong channel.” We also have in this edition a deep discussion with Assistant Secretary For Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner Julia Gordon. Darryl Hicks, NRMLA’s vice president of communications, chats with Gordon in the From the Top question-and-answer article (p. 10). Gordon outlines how the HECM has gone through significant changes and improvements in recent years. “We remain deeply committed to this program,” Gordon tells Hicks. “The input that we’ve had from the industry and the dialogue that we have both with individual lenders and servicers, as well as with NRMLA, is critical to helping us maintain and enhance this program for the seniors who rely on it.” That insight from a top regulator should be encouraging, especially knowing how far reverse mortgages have had to travel to gain wider acceptance, a journey that, unfortunately, is still in its initial steps. So, it might be a while before Hollywood finds a solid plotline and runs with it. If it did, perhaps the movie montage could include a group of well-informed seniors who are fine-tuning their retirement plans, examining their Medicare insurance and Social Security benefits and seeking an equity release program that works for them. It might not win an Academy Award, but it could help the next generation of retirees age in place without stress or worry. And your LOs, of course, would be the heroes of this action film. Thomas A. Barstow, senior editor of Reverse Mortgage, is a writer and editor based in Pennsylvania. In Reverse Some LOs have been working with forward and reverse mortgages for years, while others are just starting to work with reverse mortgage clients. REVERSE MORTGAGE / JULY-AUGUST 2024 3
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