While the year 2024 was full of challenges for the mortgage industry at large – ups and downs – the new year brings a new perspective. Some challenges remain, with mortgage rates foremost among them. Education and distribution could also be improved. But there are also new opportunities for the industry in 2025, and the ever-optimistic reverse finance industry is ready to embrace them.
That was a common theme in conversations with industry workers at many companies, who shared their views on the year ahead. HousingWireReverse Mortgage Daily (RMD).
Accessibility for many mortgage players forward
In the past few years there have been new efforts on the part of lending companies to better connect with their counterparts in the traditional mortgage space. When rates started to rise, forward looking companies seemed to embrace the ability to add desert loans to their top product portfolios, and the mortgage industry continues to see this as a strong opportunity in the new year.
“I think the opportunity, and what we started in 2023 and continued in 2024 in particular, is this distribution issue,” said Jim Cory, managing director of reverse mortgage at. Guild Mortgage who was recently elected as the chairman of National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA).
“My role at NRMLA, for example, is to work on different ways of reaching out to other organizations to build distribution,” he added. “I see that as a very important thing in 2025, which may be the ‘year of cooperation,’ if you want to call it that. I see more collaboration with different business units, industry wide and within the Guild, too. “
Some of this was echoed by Steve Irwin, president of NRMLA, in a recent interview with RMD.
“There’s a lot going on and meetings that are happening with me and the co-chairs, Mike Kent and Jim Cory, about expanding our reach to nearby industries and relevant educational institutions,” Irwin said. “Like think tanks and other organizations related to aging issues, but also private mortgage bankers, connecting with them, getting involved in their events, and real estate brokers’ events and their educational content.”
Spreading the word continues to be a priority and NRMLA will continue to lead, Irwin said.
“[We want to let them know] how a reverse mortgage works, and how adding a reverse mortgage to the product portfolio benefits senior home owners as well.”
Lisa Moriello, national manager of reverse marketing at loanDepotsaid that this connection was a bright spot in 2024 and fully expected the industry-wide and company-specific efforts to continue into the new year.
“The good news for 2024 for us is that we have many loan officers who see that mortgages are a good thing. [to add to] their business, and many people have taken the initiative to get certified,” she said. So we are working hard to educate them, help them build businesses, get them out into their communities, so we can introduce this piece to their markets.
Digital processes and exiting the ‘dark ages’
In a statement to RMD, American Finance (FOA) president Kristen Sieffert spoke about the priorities the company is pursuing in the new year, from the identified opportunities.
“As we look ahead to 2025, our main focus is on developing a new digital medium to deliver a seamless experience to our customers and modernizing our marketing strategy to overcome previous adoption barriers in our industry,” he said. “We believe that focusing on these two areas is critical to our mission to establish home equity as a common retirement solution for retirees.”
Technology is also seen as a priority by Peter Sciandra, Reverse Lending’s EVP of Marketing Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp.
“We are looking for ways to reduce costs for the borrower, because it is always considered that we have high costs,” he said. “So we want to try to fix that a little bit in the program itself. There may be ways to improve that, whether it’s changes in guidelines or changes in technology. We are starting to focus on these things. And for me that makes me very happy.”
Sciandra said that the industry still has some distance to go when it comes to bringing the technology of this sector to a modern level, but the opportunity to do so is welcomed.
“Unfortunately, we are in the dark ages in many ways in terms of advanced technology,” he said. “So we’re looking at some things, we’re working with other software vendors to maybe make changes to the way things are done.”
Related
Source link
