Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / A Crash Course In Becoming a Reverse Mortgage Specialist
Transcript
- 0:00In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
- 0:04the real estate agents is essential for success.
- 0:06However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
- 0:11With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
- 0:15can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
- 0:20Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
- 0:25Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
- 0:31And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
- 0:34with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
- 0:39To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
- 0:45of the case study today.
- 0:47You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
- 0:52in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too.
- 0:56Don't miss out.
- 0:57Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
- 1:03Are you curious about reverse mortgages?
- 1:06Have you ever wondered does reverse have a place in your future?
- 1:10What's the future for reverse?
- 1:11Are they difficult?
- 1:13How much money can you make?
- 1:15Well today, this episode is for you because I have got one of the foremost experts on
- 1:21reverse mortgages and reverse mortgage training for loan officers.
- 1:26Christina Harms is my special guest and she has been originating reverse mortgages for
- 1:31well over a decade and she's going to reveal to you on this episode everything you need
- 1:37to know about reverse mortgages.
- 1:40Hey listeners, Jeff Zimper, welcome to this episode of the mortgage marketing radio
- 1:50podcast.
- 1:51Hey, by the way, how are you doing?
- 1:54It is when I'm releasing this podcast, it is June 2022.
- 1:59We are officially at the 50% mark.
- 2:01The halfway mark, are you running a marathon, are you in a race, are you looping around
- 2:06the track?
- 2:07Hey, at the halfway point, I've been working with some of my coaching members to take a
- 2:12look at where we're pulling the car in, right?
- 2:14If you imagine for me the one, right, racing, what do they do?
- 2:17They pull the car in every once in a while when it needs to be checked, when the tires
- 2:22need to be swapped out when they need to make a small, quick slide adjustment to the vehicle.
- 2:29My question for you is, are you taking a look at your business, where are you on the track,
- 2:35how are you making progress, are you where you expected to be, and if not, how are you
- 2:42going to make some changes in shifts right now?
- 2:44Finally we've moved out from a refi heavy market to a purchase heavy market, and the primary
- 2:50source for purchase business in this country still is real estate agents.
- 2:57In my market last month, Clark County, Nevada, there were approximately 3,500 existing homes
- 3:05sold, not including new construction.
- 3:08The NAO reports that 87% of buyers finance their home.
- 3:12So if I do the math on that, that's 3,000 purchase loans in my backyard, and there was
- 3:17a recent study by 1,000 watt consulting that proved that upwards of 50% of buyers use
- 3:25the agent recommended lender, sometimes even when they come with their own lender.
- 3:30So continue with me on the math, right, the 3,000 purchase loans, if 50% of buyers are
- 3:35using the agent recommended lender, that's potentially 1,500 buyers being referred by
- 3:40the lenders in my backyard.
- 3:42So what is my job then?
- 3:43My job is to get in front of the business, the source of business, and being that the
- 3:48numbers still bear out that almost 90% of buyers are financing their home, right, and almost
- 3:5390% of buyers are still working with an agent, and up to 50% of those buyers are strongly
- 4:00open to and actually use the referred lender from the agent, then my job is to get in front
- 4:06of the agents who have those buyers, build connections, relationships with those agents
- 4:09to capture my ship fair share of those 1,500 buyers, does that make sense?
- 4:15The question then is what systems will I implement to grow my agent connections and relationships
- 4:19to capture more buyers?
- 4:23And I'd like to present to you a better way, my agent classes, part of our mortgage
- 4:27marketing pro membership where every single month you can get in front of agents at scale
- 4:33to become the pre-eminent business, the pre-eminent business of choice, the lender of choice
- 4:38become the local authority amongst your real estate agent population.
- 4:42This works if you work it.
- 4:44Chris Madden.
- 4:46He was on the podcast back last year, episode 217, he's closed over $16 million in referrals
- 4:52from agent classes.
- 4:54He teaches agent classes, he provides educational content, and he uses Instagram to engage
- 4:59clients, sorry, agents directly.
- 5:01This has resulted in just about every single one of his referral partners coming from Instagram
- 5:05and his classes, he scales faster.
- 5:08He's projected a growth rate of 46% year over year because he's become the pre-eminent
- 5:14business.
- 5:15Does that sound like something you'd like to do for yourself in your career?
- 5:18If so, go to mortgagemarketing.pro, learn more about how we're helping loan officers
- 5:25like Chris become the pre-eminent lender in their local market.
- 5:31Okay, so on this episode, you've heard on the intro, my special guest is Christina
- 5:35Harms, what we're talking about is reverse mortgages, everything you wanted to know about
- 5:39reverse.
- 5:40Christina is a wonderful human being with a caring heart, which is one of the reasons why
- 5:44she succeeds with reverse mortgages.
- 5:46And I think it was about time that we talk about reverse and hear it straight from the
- 5:51source of somebody who's done hundreds of reverse loans.
- 5:55The ins, the outs, the good, the bad, the ugly, and if you've considered reverse as a potential
- 5:59source for you, a potential future direction in your business, what you need to know before
- 6:04you even consider adding reverse to your mix.
- 6:08And of course, there are lots of links we talk about in this episode.
- 6:10We're going to put links to all those in the show notes, but of particular interest
- 6:14is Christina's private Facebook group, which is where she provides free training and
- 6:19education for people all about reverse.
- 6:21And we'll put a link to that as well.
- 6:23If you want to search it on Facebook, it's Christina Harms, reverse mortgage coach.
- 6:27Go check that out.
- 6:28And then there's other links in the show notes, make sure you check those out as well.
- 6:31So without further ado, let's get into this week's show.
- 6:35Christina Harms, welcome to the show.
- 6:37Hey, Jeff, thank you so much for having me.
- 6:40It is a pleasure and dare I say an honor and I'm not just blowing smoke, but I say that
- 6:46because I already have a certain level of respect and admiration for what you do because
- 6:53I know it's not easy and I always also have an extra level of appreciation for somebody
- 6:59who's broken away from the herd, so to speak, right?
- 7:03In this herd of reverse mortgage originations, and we'll get into that.
- 7:07But for the benefit of people listening, how about the brief bio on Christina?
- 7:11Yeah, thank you.
- 7:13Gosh, where do I start?
- 7:17So I started in my dad's office when I was 16.
- 7:19I started as just an assistant kind of task working.
- 7:22He was a mortgage broker.
- 7:24From there, I learned how to be a mortgage broker for regular loans.
- 7:28And then I also learned how to be a real estate agent.
- 7:30In my young career, I started to be a first-time homebuyer's agent and I would do the mortgage.
- 7:36And so these young couples would, you know, they would rely on me for everything.
- 7:41And I would be the one to give them the keys at the end, having also gone through the hurdles
- 7:44of the mortgage, which a lot of the time weren't easy.
- 7:47So it was just a really fulfilling thing to do.
- 7:50When I was about 25, I actually assisted my dad on his second reverse, his first reverse
- 7:56he didn't include me on.
- 7:58The second one he did, and it was life changing for me.
- 8:02I, it's life changing to give somebody the first keys, of course, but it compares nothing
- 8:07to setting up a cup, in this case, it was a couple of seniors for the rest of their life.
- 8:14When, when the wife hugged me at closing, she had tears in her eyes and she,
- 8:20I could just feel the relief washing over her because she had just been so worried for so long.
- 8:25They got into some financial situations.
- 8:28He was in ailing health and so she was really concerned.
- 8:31He was going to pass and leave her with this financial situation that, one, she'd never
- 8:35have to deal, had to deal with.
- 8:37She didn't do the finances at all.
- 8:39And then two, where was she going to go because the only thing she had for assets was
- 8:44her home.
- 8:45And it wasn't, you know, a $2 million house where she could easily sell it and use tons
- 8:49of equity.
- 8:50She didn't want to sell it.
- 8:52And so providing that roof over the head for as long as she may live and fixing their
- 8:57financial situation, we actually got the money and a line of credit.
- 9:01It was just absolutely life changing, which sounds good to be true.
- 9:05It's not.
- 9:06There's some things about the product.
- 9:07Of course, I educate on, but it is a really amazing, amazing loan.
- 9:12And from that point on, I've never looked back.
- 9:15Yeah, that's, that's interesting.
- 9:16That's a good story.
- 9:17We'll definitely unpack that more, the impact that you have on people with that.
- 9:22Let's let's deal with, well, let me ask you this first, that was as you referred to
- 9:27it, I was going to ask you why reverse.
- 9:30And it was that it was that like the shift to defining moment where you saw the impact
- 9:35you could make.
- 9:36And you're like, I mean, I want more of that, right?
- 9:38Absolutely.
- 9:39Oh my gosh.
- 9:40Yeah.
- 9:41Yeah.
- 9:42So, all right.
- 9:43So how did you then?
- 9:44How long ago was this, by the way?
- 9:45A little over a decade.
- 9:48So how did your career, do you do nothing but reverse today?
- 9:52Correct.
- 9:53Okay.
- 9:54So how did you make that migration?
- 9:56Was that like, did you, did you question that?
- 9:59Were you like, you know, because that's, that's when reverse is still kind of had that bad stigma, you know?
- 10:04It was, it was actually the years where it was coming off of that because I used to do lunch and learned.
- 10:09And we would tell everybody about the amazing changes and protections being built in.
- 10:14Right.
- 10:15I was right at that cusp of change.
- 10:17And to me, that was really important because there were protections built in that I fully believe in.
- 10:23If I had started to do reverse market just 20 years ago, there were protections that needed to be there that weren't.
- 10:29So I'm not sure that I would have been fully behind the product.
- 10:32Of course, the life changing, of course, you know, let people decide their own level of risk.
- 10:37But, you know, if it's not something I will put my grandparents in, it's not something I want to do.
- 10:42And the previous structures, there were some challenges there.
- 10:46But as of about 10 years ago, they started to make these changes.
- 10:49They've continued to make changes pretty regularly.
- 10:52That continue to make the product much, much safer and a great solution.
- 10:57But you still come up against misconceptions about reverse, right?
- 11:02What are the most common ones you, you hear either from L.O.s or from clients?
- 11:07I actually hear a lot from L.O.s too.
- 11:09So I'm surprised, I was surprised at that.
- 11:12So we'll talk about what I've created for that aspect later.
- 11:15But the most common ones I hear are, oh, the bank's going to take my house.
- 11:21No, they're not.
- 11:22It's a mortgage.
- 11:23It's a lean on title, just like any of the mortgage, you have to pay your taxes and insurance and live in the home as your primary.
- 11:29That is a unique thing to reverse.
- 11:31You have to live in it as your primary.
- 11:33But if you do those things, the mortgage isn't due until you pass away, sell or move out of the property permanently or default on those things.
- 11:42Just like any other mortgage that could happen.
- 11:45Another really common one is, oh, I have to leave as much as I can to my kids.
- 11:50Let me say, I have to leave the house to my kids.
- 11:54And what they're really trying to say is I want to leave as much as I can to my kids because the kids aren't really going to keep the house.
- 11:59They're going to sell it and split the equity.
- 12:01Well, then it's just dollars.
- 12:03And so then we're talking about the whole picture, right?
- 12:06Not just the house.
- 12:08And when we create that whole picture, the financial wealth, including home equity, it's a much, much bigger pie.
- 12:15And so people have always kind of said, don't do the house.
- 12:18And that has come from our country's agricultural history, which is just not applicable today.
- 12:24So then what's the most often reason you're seeing people utilize this reverse mortgage?
- 12:31My clients typically fall into about two buckets.
- 12:34So the longest time for the longest time, reverse mortgages were the loan of last resort.
- 12:39And they kind of earned that reputation because you didn't have to qualify really.
- 12:43If you were 62, you owned enough, enough equity in your home, and you had a pulse, well, let's get you that reverse mortgage.
- 12:51And they didn't check if people could stay, keep the lights on still.
- 12:55Some people were in such a bad financial situation, even the reverse couldn't help.
- 13:00And so now we have qualifying standards.
- 13:02And so it really does make us look at, is this a sustainable solution?
- 13:06And I've had conversations where I say, this isn't a fit.
- 13:09This is absolutely not a fit.
- 13:10You need to go to this person and maybe they can help you.
- 13:13But reverse isn't the right option for you in your situation.
- 13:17The growth of reverse though, I mean two things.
- 13:23And doing a little prepping for this call, I looked at a statistics, and you know this obviously very well,
- 13:29is the amount of equity people now have is at all time highs.
- 13:33And that, and by the way, let's just, you said earlier, the minimum age to qualify for a reverse is 62.
- 13:41Is that correct?
- 13:43For the FHA Hechum, yes, but there are other private types.
- 13:47The lowest age, one of those programs has age 55.
- 13:51Okay, so I could qualify.
- 13:53You may, we should talk after if you want to look into it.
- 13:57No, you're not race.
- 13:59Well, actually that's a nice transition.
- 14:01And let's talk about the different types of reverse mortgages and any comments you want to add about, you know, what they're right for or not.
- 14:08Yeah, so they're not always available in every state that's going to be the first thing people want to check for.
- 14:13And there are lots of different types of reverse mortgages there, we kind of use a lot of different terms, but they're all interchangeable.
- 14:20So you'll hear the words jumbo, you'll hear the word proprietary, you'll hear the word portfolio, you'll even hear private.
- 14:27They're all referring to these types of reverse mortgages that are not FHA.
- 14:32And they're relatively new in about 2015.
- 14:35I believe one of the bigger lenders rolled out the first program.
- 14:39It went well.
- 14:40Their first offering to secondary went really well.
- 14:43So then other lenders jumped in.
- 14:45And so now we have solutions for people with million dollar homes.
- 14:50We have solutions for people who are not age qualified to a Hechum.
- 14:53We have solutions for people who don't want the mortgage insurance.
- 14:57These a lot of the private, well, excuse me, all the private.
- 14:59So they don't have mortgage insurance on them.
- 15:01Now, excuse me, the lenders do self insure.
- 15:04So the rates are higher.
- 15:05So it is a trade off.
- 15:06I think that's similar to forward, you know, jumbo's have higher.
- 15:10But the transition has been amazing.
- 15:12So we've got.
- 15:13It's no longer a loan of last resort.
- 15:15And now we have these jumbo's.
- 15:17The largest home I ever did a reverse mortgage on was 15 million.
- 15:21It was worth a million.
- 15:23Yeah.
- 15:24And that guy was not desperate.
- 15:26He just understood the finances and how to work that with his.
- 15:30The rest of his assets and portfolio to have a better all overall.
- 15:34Better overall outcome for his heirs as well as the rest of his life.
- 15:39And for his wife, there was a medical need she had to.
- 15:43So it was just beautiful.
- 15:44And so we're getting these these two like.
- 15:47You know, the middle class hasn't filled in yet.
- 15:49Because the middle class typically follows what the wealthier do.
- 15:52Well, the wealthier wealthier is starting to incorporate reverse mortgages.
- 15:56So we have these really different segments of the population that are utilizing this one because it's a need base.
- 16:02They just don't have anything else.
- 16:04And then one because they see what an incredible retirement tool it is.
- 16:08It's just time until that gap starts to fill.
- 16:13And without going super deep, can you tease this a little bit about why it is a smart retirement tool for the right person.
- 16:21I'll tease you.
- 16:22That means I got to be short.
- 16:24So the most powerful piece of this is cash flow.
- 16:30You work your whole life to accumulate assets so that you can retire and live on them.
- 16:36Well, the largest piece of your of your entire puzzle is your home equity.
- 16:41So ignoring that is a really hard situation to retire on.
- 16:45And why would you?
- 16:46It's the best investment you've ever made.
- 16:48And yet people don't touch it in this thing there.
- 16:51By the way, nothing or not.
- 16:52What you're saying there is, okay, so I'm retired.
- 16:54I'm sitting on this house.
- 16:55I've got all this equity.
- 16:56But it's untapped resources.
- 16:58And what we're saying is this is now become a financial instrument to access this untapped cash that you have.
- 17:05So that now you've got two sides of the coin.
- 17:08You've got a person who maybe isn't right.
- 17:11Super successful financially or savvy if you will.
- 17:14And they're like, hey, I just need money to pay the bills.
- 17:17Then there's this other side where it's just like, okay, they're smart.
- 17:19They leverage different financial instruments.
- 17:21Right.
- 17:22This is what you're saying.
- 17:23Absolutely.
- 17:24Yeah, you got that right.
- 17:25All right.
- 17:26So casual leads me to ask then a little bit about there.
- 17:28There are the different types or options.
- 17:30And I'm looking at my cheat sheet here.
- 17:32When it comes to home reverse mortgages is.
- 17:35Can you walk us through the different types of payment, you know, lump sum, et cetera?
- 17:40Yeah, absolutely.
- 17:41So different products will offer different things.
- 17:43But in general, there are different ways you can receive proceeds.
- 17:47The most common people are familiar with is, of course, what the TV used to tell us forever.
- 17:52Oh, the mortgage company will pay you every month.
- 17:55And absolutely that can happen.
- 17:57That's called a 10 year payment.
- 17:59Not 10 years, but 10 year.
- 18:00A T E N U R E like professors have.
- 18:03Right.
- 18:0410 year.
- 18:05And that is equal monthly payments for as long as you live in the home.
- 18:08Which imagine if you live to be 110.
- 18:12Which we all are doing in the next 20 years.
- 18:16All this person of date of recorded history is 112 so far.
- 18:20So that person probably didn't have a reverse that I know, but God, they should have.
- 18:24All right.
- 18:26So you've got the 10 year payment, which is the most common.
- 18:30But it's actually not the most common that I use in my practice.
- 18:33I use the line of credit the most because that protects longevity that protects against the future.
- 18:39The line of credit on the FHA Heckham, for example, is a growing line of credit.
- 18:46It doesn't matter if the real estate market crashes or not.
- 18:50That line of credit will be available.
- 18:52It can never be frozen.
- 18:54And that growth factor will continue to happen.
- 18:57Then beyond that, people who are familiar with he locks or home equity line of credit,
- 19:02like you get through your credit union or bank.
- 19:04Those are typically only open for 10 years.
- 19:07And then at the end of that 10 years, you can't draw anymore.
- 19:10But oh, my goodness, you better start paying us back.
- 19:13And that payment jumps up.
- 19:15So if you're 63 and you get a he lock, well, by the time you're 73,
- 19:19unless some miracle has happened, most people's finances haven't increased to support a larger payment.
- 19:25And a lot of them didn't understand that's how it would work.
- 19:28And so that what was really cool is the line of credit in the reverse.
- 19:32It doesn't just go for 10 years.
- 19:34It goes for the entire life of the loan until you draw it down to zero.
- 19:38And it continues to grow.
- 19:40So the power of this growth piece in the line of credit is incredible.
- 19:45You let it compounding growth.
- 19:47If you let it sit there for 10, 20 years, you're going to have a large pool to pull from.
- 19:52You do have a medical event or finally need to take care of the roof or whatever.
- 19:57Some people are a little more luxurious with it.
- 19:59Actually take that vacation, but they wouldn't have otherwise.
- 20:02But most people are just looking to make sure they don't outlive their assets.
- 20:05And adding in the reverse can absolutely do that.
- 20:08So with the line of credit, you can draw that down against the balance, right?
- 20:16Draw again.
- 20:17Yeah, think of it as two buckets, right?
- 20:19The kind of credit which is not used money yet, it's just equity that you have in borrowed.
- 20:23Right.
- 20:24And then you have a loan balance bucket.
- 20:26So as you use the line of credit, you know, say you used 10,000,
- 20:30well, that goes into the loan balance bucket now.
- 20:32It's adding to the loan balance.
- 20:33Right.
- 20:34And all that's based on equity owed.
- 20:36And what's what's the, I know it differs.
- 20:38There's in terms of max ratios, right?
- 20:41How do they determine that?
- 20:43It's more complex.
- 20:44So in regular mortgages, we have things like, oh, it's 80% LTV for this program.
- 20:49Oh, it's 95% LTV for this program.
- 20:51In reverse, we actually don't even use the word LTV, but most of our audience is going to relate to that.
- 20:56So I will.
- 20:57In that the LTV or principal limit factor is actually gotten to by the youngest borrowers age.
- 21:05Current interest rates.
- 21:07And the home's value or max claim, whichever is lower.
- 21:12We have a cap on value limits.
- 21:14And so what's cool about that is that every single time you look at your first mortgage numbers, they're going to be different.
- 21:21And I say that's cool because I had a client who in 2019, she asked me to do her reverse.
- 21:27At that point in time, she would have had to bring in about 80,000.
- 21:32But a year later, she didn't do it, right?
- 21:34So she got one year older, which helps a little in the LTV.
- 21:38It's not a ton, but the increased equity and the lowered interest rates in 2020 meant that she actually received $120,000.
- 21:47So those LTVs swing in huge ways mostly because of interest rates.
- 21:54Interesting.
- 21:55And I know interest rates vary.
- 21:57So I don't want to try and, you know, paint in a corner here, but people are naturally curious what the range of rates would be.
- 22:03Yeah, we follow, I mean, interest rates, whatever they are on the 30 year fix for somewhere near that typically.
- 22:09It's not too far off.
- 22:11Reverse mortgage interest rates are often a little bit higher, right?
- 22:14It's a mortgage with no payment.
- 22:16But, you know, in 2002, gosh, I want to say that mortgage was probably in the 3% range.
- 22:22No, excuse me, 2020.
- 22:24But now we are in the 4 to 5 to 6, depending on what product you're looking at.
- 22:31Got it, got it.
- 22:32And then of course, while we're talking about interest rates fees, they're various as well.
- 22:38So once again, what would your comment be about those that are curious about fees?
- 22:43Oh, yeah, absolutely.
- 22:44Thank you for asking.
- 22:45A big misconception that reverse mortgages are super expensive to get.
- 22:48They can be.
- 22:49There are certain structures that are beneficial to do that way.
- 22:53But with all the new product offerings, there are actually products where the lender will cover every cost except the ones they can't, which is counseling government recording fees as for state and local.
- 23:06Which, that's a lot of closing costs.
- 23:08So it's almost a no-cost loan.
- 23:10We can't say it's no cost because there legally are a couple things we can't pay for.
- 23:15But you can have that and then you can all go all the way up to having the mortgage insurance so that you can get the low rates.
- 23:22And in that case, closing costs, you know, anywhere from 10 to 20,000 are kind of common, but they're financed in just like a regular FHA loan.
- 23:30Regular FHA has that upfront portion and reverse has one as well.
- 23:34I don't believe they're the same numbers though.
- 23:36And naturally, we are speaking to loan officers.
- 23:40And so, you know, the discussion around compensation is usually, you know, somewhere close nearby when you look at the funding alone.
- 23:48And I don't have any actual stats on this, but let me just give you my perception is, is the rumor is right that, oh, yeah, you can quote make a lot of money.
- 23:57Let's just put it out there doing a reverse, meaning the average, you know, comp to the L.O. is higher than that of a more traditional loan.
- 24:07Yeah, that that actually brings a lot of negativity into our industry, but it's not entirely untrue.
- 24:15You can make a lot, but what people forget is that the reverse mortgage process, the clientele, the tasks you have to do.
- 24:22There's a lot more and then forward like, for instance, we have to get our own application signed.
- 24:28So you have to, like I used to go to every client's house and sit at their kitchen table and watch them write out 60 signatures and this 100 page application.
- 24:37Now I do it through Docu sign, but I'm still dragging and dropping signatures.
- 24:40So we don't have the tech that the forward side has, which I think makes life a little easier.
- 24:46What I found in my practice is when I switched from from forward to reverse, in my head, it was about one reverse was about equal to about three regular mortgages in the amount of work.
- 25:01And so when you do get paid more, I'm very grateful for it because it takes a lot to get this thing through and to have the expertise to be able to do it successfully.
- 25:11Now that's a big misconception, though, because pricing has really taint.
- 25:16And so right now what is a little comical to me is, you know, you got these forward people who are not finding loans anywhere else.
- 25:26And so they're like, oh, reverse pays a lot. Let me just do this one that I got thrown my way.
- 25:31And then they go through the trauma of trying to do it on their own, maybe with the help of an AE, but it's, it's a lot.
- 25:37And then they get to the end and realize that they're pricing, at least for brokers, I'm not going to speak for other companies.
- 25:43So the pricing didn't lock when they lock that loans for the interest rate, our pricing doesn't lock until closing.
- 25:49And so you end up with a big swing in your commission. And right now that swing is down.
- 25:55I mean, we're not, we're not making much more than regular loans right now, depending on the situation.
- 26:02So I say that on average, you know, if you're doing like that $15 million home.
- 26:07That was a private and that loan amount was really big. So I could make a decent on that.
- 26:12But my average, you know, the FHA Heckham has a max claim of 97800.
- 26:17Then if we're talking around 50% on TV, your largest loan amounts are going to be in the three to 400 range, if that bar was old, if they're young, like 62, it's going to be less than that.
- 26:28So what people get really confused about is they see the rate sheet and their eyes get real big because they're seeing some big numbers.
- 26:35Those big numbers are on really tiny loan amounts.
- 26:39You know, if I'm getting eight points on a $25,000 loan, well, how much money is that really?
- 26:46A mobile home park and all that. Yeah.
- 26:49So that's how it works. You get paid less points as it gets larger in loan amounts. So that helps compensate.
- 26:55And pricing swings a lot. Investors used to have a really big appetite for reverse because they were held for seven years, whereas the regular mortgage only held on average for three years.
- 27:05That's not the case anymore because we just went through this really big kind of turnover where even reverse mortgages were being refinanced really early and quickly because there was so much appreciation and interest rates were down.
- 27:18Just that just is to say pricing really, really swings.
- 27:23So back to the different types of a reverse mortgages for a moment, the most common option you're seeing people select is the line of credit. Is that accurate?
- 27:32In my practice. Now that's not going to be true all over the country, but I'm in California where there's a lot of equity. So yeah, set up that line of credit.
- 27:41Interesting, interesting. What happens in this may differ, of course, based on loan type and investor, et cetera. But what happens is when somebody wants to get out of the reverse mortgage?
- 27:52Do they have to sell the house or cash pay off the balance? What?
- 27:56I almost want to answer that question with a question. What happens when you want to get out of your existing mortgage?
- 28:02Refi or sell. Yeah. Same.
- 28:04Really? So you just reply into a forward mortgage. If you want to, yeah, you absolutely can. Most people get used to not having to make a payment and they love the features.
- 28:14This is a cool stat I want in this recording. 93% is the approval rating for people who actually have reverse mortgages.
- 28:23Really? So they don't we don't typically see that when we see that kind of activity, I'll get brokers asking me like, I'm trying to refinance so and so out of a reverse.
- 28:31I bring up, well, did you know they can make payments? And a lot of the time, the errors are the ones driving the boat on that.
- 28:38And if they just start making payments, well, then they're going to achieve their same goal without having to commit their parent to having monthly payments.
- 28:47Payments to pay down the principal? Yeah. And the accrued interest, right? You don't make a payment every month. So there's interest.
- 28:55It's stacking on the balance of the loan. Yeah.
- 28:58Interesting. Well, I guess you got to look at the numbers to see which one is more advantageous.
- 29:02I know in my situation, actually, we have a personal situation going on with this right now.
- 29:09Not that I want to disclose all of it, but maybe we can chat offline. But that's one of the considerations that's happening right now.
- 29:16There's an existing reverse and the strategy has changed to where you know what?
- 29:20We want to keep the house as a legacy house, right, for the family and et cetera, et cetera.
- 29:24So right now they're looking at getting out of reverse. So I'm glad to know it's just it's a simple refine them.
- 29:30Yeah, we can talk. I'll show you how to look to figure out what your monthly payment would be to either pay down the loan or at least just keep it steady so that more interest doesn't add to it.
- 29:41And you know, all the family members if they want to pitch in forward towards that payment.
- 29:46And then the beauty is if something happens in the future and one family member can't pay or mom and dad need more funds, the reverse is still there. So you have it.
- 29:57Get it rid of it. That's an interesting concept. It's like it's like this forever line of credit.
- 30:04Until it's drawn down to zero, but you can pay back into it if you want.
- 30:08Right. Right. That's very interesting. Okay. All right. I also want to make sure that we don't leave the scene of scenes we talked about money and different types of loan products and all this kind of stuff.
- 30:18And the fact that it is a more difficult loan to work and in L.O.'s, you know, they see the numbers like you said, oh my god, I'm going to make X amount of points on this, whatever.
- 30:29Who I was trying to think about how to present this question because people get blinded by quote the money or whatever, right.
- 30:37And by the way, just so you know, the filter I'm coming through at this through is I have thought to myself, if I ever was going to get back into originating, I would want to be a specialist in a niche.
- 30:48And the two that come up for me is either divorce specialist or reverse potentially. But what should somebody know or who would a pursuing reverse as a career?
- 31:01Who like, how would you advise against it? You know what I mean? Oh, oh, I easy. I've had the benefit of working for some real big companies. I helped build the reverse division. So I got to work with the forward loan officers and help them start to try to integrate reverse.
- 31:17I saw the people who went, did it well and I saw the people who burned out and failed out quickly.
- 31:22Words of caution. The biggest most important piece is patience. I did a poll the other day and that was the number one thing that loan officer doing reverse must have a lot of patience.
- 31:33But patience isn't just enough. You really have to commit to the expertise because if you don't know what you're doing, you're going to mess up enough loans to ruin your reputation before you ever get started.
- 31:45And so that's the thing. It's like, you know, I always say, oh, you have to care about your clients as if they were your own.
- 31:50But caring isn't enough, right? I'm not going to let my dentist do brain surgery when I need it because he really cares about me.
- 31:57You have to know what you're doing. You have to be competent and caring and you can't be competent by learning on your first file.
- 32:03And that is the biggest misconception. And I get it. I was a forward loan officer. I used to grab a matrix to help get my guidelines and go and do a loan that I'd never done before and my clients never knew the difference.
- 32:16Reverse is not that way at all. And that's the biggest pitfall.
- 32:21And it ruins our reputation. Honestly, like it kills me when rates are down and everybody floods to the reverse space a little bit because they're trying to get through these loans on the loan.
- 32:32And they're doing a big disservice to their clients and their seniors, you know, it's a protected class. We should we owe them more than that.
- 32:39Well, so let's talk about that then. How do they get educated? And by the way, I'm, I know that we'll talk about the NRMLA and probably other organizations like that. But right now, you don't need any special designation to to originate a reverse.
- 32:57Excuse me. That is company by company. So no, there's no extra legal requirement. Now, certain states have weird things going on. But in general, no, a regular broker who has access to a lender who will do reverse, they can just go try it.
- 33:13And the resources, yeah, I don't love it, but they can. The resources, the lenders have courses and everything. But again, you have to actually do them. And then the courses are good, but there's some information left out.
- 33:29So there's other resources. I can kind of give a list of resources if you got to.
- 33:33And we've got your own. So throw that in the mix as well. But yeah, where would you direct people? They they legitimately want to, you know, you know, get serious about reverse.
- 33:41Yeah. Well, if you're getting serious, the first place is join my free Facebook group. So you can stay in the know on the conversation and ask these kinds of questions to a whole community of people.
- 33:51Either learning reverse or already doing reverse. And that is just search Facebook, Christina Barnes reverse mortgage training.
- 33:58Yes. And we'll also put a direct link in the show notes.
- 34:01Thank you. Thank you. So that is where I update everyone. So the resources I'm going to say there are new ones that come out. And that's where I post them.
- 34:08But very first is the there's a book called Understanding Reverse. And it's by the author Dan Holtquist.
- 34:17And as you know, if you have someone in your family with the reverse, this is actually having my desk. This is a book you want because it's written in like question and answer formats.
- 34:28So let me just open one. I love it.
- 34:30I love the fact that you have it on the desk. By the way, that's a serious student.
- 34:36So what are mandatory obligations at chapter five? And then you go to chapter five and it's two pages explaining what that is.
- 34:43And the whole book is written that way. It's really good for errors because you weren't in the initial conversations typically.
- 34:49And so you don't know how it worked or why they did it. And that book can help you understand. Oh, oh, there's all these features. Oh, okay, I can see why they did this now.
- 34:58And maybe know how to move forward with it. It will also show errors, you know, if you're wrapping up a reverse mortgage after someone has passed.
- 35:05There's some information on there in there on that too.
- 35:08Then there's a publication reverse mortgage daily subscribe to that.
- 35:14There's a podcast heck of moral subscribe to that.
- 35:18There are a bunch of other books written by financial planners. So if you're really, really looking to dive in.
- 35:24You need your baseline of education before you start on those books. So, you know, I would say understanding reverse.
- 35:30Join my my class. I actually offer a course that is meant to take the originator from oh crap. What do I do? I have a reverse mortgage lead all the way through.
- 35:41Thank you for your signed application. We're putting it in process.
- 35:44So everything a loan officer needs to do. And there's a lot in those steps and how to approach the client with the clients actually thinking when you say this.
- 35:52All that's built into this, you know, it's a five module course I built. And then I do private coaching as well.
- 35:58Because you really need a mentor. So people who can't, you know, maybe that company doesn't pay enough to make it make sense to hire a private mentor.
- 36:06Your company should have someone available to you to do these loans with. And I highly recommend you actually just take it on the chin split the file.
- 36:16Yes, you may make less commission, but 100% of zero is still zero. And that's what I've seen a lot of loan officers do.
- 36:23Okay. And I wrote all that down and there will be links to all that in the show notes, the books resources and stuff. So thank you for that.
- 36:29Before I forget though, how do you originate? You know, where do you get the business?
- 36:35Oh, it's been, it's been a journey. So when I was in my 20s, I was single and I was a bit of a workaholic.
- 36:42I was at a networking meeting at 7 a.m. three days a week every week for like two years.
- 36:47And I would hand out my business cards that I do reverse mortgages, even though at that time I was still doing regular mortgages.
- 36:54I didn't want it to appear that way. I wanted to appear that I was the specialist and I was the person for their reverse.
- 37:01And I still believe in that today. I think that has made a big difference in my career.
- 37:05And so I would hand out those. I would, I got on speaking panels. I really understood my stuff.
- 37:11You got to put the reps in. You got to get the loans in.
- 37:14You do that for in my belief system, typically through referral partners, because this is a really high trust type of product.
- 37:22Yes.
- 37:23And the loyalty is built in when you've got the referrals. So I think that's the most solid way.
- 37:30So by referral partners, obviously real estate ages is one, but you also like financial advisors, that kind of stuff.
- 37:37Yeah.
- 37:38Really good referral partners, realtors, financial planners, financial advisors, CPAs, accountants, attorneys.
- 37:45And you largely got audience or in front or created awareness.
- 37:48No, we get realtors, right, networking, lunch and learns, all that.
- 37:51But how did you do it with the financial advisors, attorneys type stuff?
- 37:55That's not pill battle. It's mostly one on one.
- 37:58I mean, some people have these big agreements where they do lunch and learns.
- 38:02And for me, I haven't found that to be super effective.
- 38:06There's a couple offices that are receptive to it, but it's mostly just one on one.
- 38:11They need us. They don't really know they need us yet. Some of them are starting to become aware of that.
- 38:16But there's not that many reverse people.
- 38:19And so being that go to for financial planners is a big resource.
- 38:23Now, you do have to answer a lot of questions.
- 38:25You're not just going to suddenly have turned the faucet on and they're going to send you a ton of leads.
- 38:29You got to earn their business and you do that through proving you have the expertise and doing well by their clients.
- 38:35Yeah. And you said I was reading some of your stuff and you were alluding to in one of your articles or whatever it was that I saw you posting something about, you know, the financial advisor missing the equity as a quote opportunity if you will paraphrasing.
- 38:50But my question around that was, you know, how often are you seeing that scenario play out of financial advisor, you, the homeowner, whatever doing this reverse and they're going to reposition that 200 grand or whatever.
- 39:04And actually instead of have that as cash lump sum or draw down and they're going to reposition that to an investment.
- 39:12Maybe you're more, you know, what do you call it wealthier clients would be doing that.
- 39:17Yeah. So it's interesting. In theory, people think, Oh, I'll pull the cash out from the house and put it with my other assets.
- 39:25But what we actually do is we help you stop pulling from those other assets as quickly as much with the reverse.
- 39:32So it's most cases we're not pulling the equity and putting it in with the financial planner.
- 39:37We're actually helping the financial planner protect their business and their assets.
- 39:42Yeah, they, you know, they've all got that client that calls twice a year going, I need 20,000 because I, whatever.
- 39:50And they show the model of, okay, if I give you that 20,000, now you've got to die when you're 93 instead of 97.
- 39:57So it's like, all right, we can stop that sort of activity. And that's the basic.
- 40:02There are much more complex strategies, but financial planners are also new to reverse.
- 40:08They don't know all of them yet. So the lowest hanging fruit is let's at least stop the bleeding on your assets.
- 40:15Yes, 100%. Okay, that's cool. I wanted to get that out of the way because I was curious about that.
- 40:19Because you know, there's thinking like the financial advisor like, well, how does that help me sell more of my products, right?
- 40:25But what you're saying is it's protecting the existing that they have, which is good.
- 40:29And the right financial advisor isn't about just making the money. They're about right, the long term planning and all that kind of stuff.
- 40:35Much like people like you are, which is you're not in this just for the money. You're in it to serve back to that original day.
- 40:42You saw that changed your life, right? Okay, so in just the last few minutes that we have, what's the, let me bring up my little stat here.
- 40:49Oh, the other, any other organizations you want to mention regarding training, education knowledge or anything like that.
- 40:55You mentioned one normal, of course, that's the organization, that's the association. It's the national reverse mortgage lenders association.
- 41:04And they are, if you have, if you have not compliant marketing, they typically see it first.
- 41:10And if you're not a member, they don't have the opportunity to tell you, hey, let's clean this up and they'll pass it on to the appropriate agencies.
- 41:17So it's a really nice benefit to be a member because there are things in reverse that you, this is really a word of caution for anybody listening.
- 41:25You can't just go out there and market with the same rules you understand on regular mortgages.
- 41:31There's extra layering because seniors are protected class.
- 41:35So yeah, that's one big benefit. And then of course they have the conferences. I stay in the know by the conferences by being a member. It's a great organization.
- 41:44Yeah, so they have a certification over there, which you are one of. And based on the last stat, at least on your website, there was less than 200 people that have that certification.
- 41:53Yeah, it's a pretty hard test. You have to have done at least 50 reverse mortgages.
- 41:57Okay.
- 41:58And my, my little towel is, I was the youngest one to ever achieve the credential. It's a hard test to pass.
- 42:05That by the way, and I'm just going rapid fire for second time now.
- 42:10Was, is that a consideration youth, right? Like was that ever working against you being younger?
- 42:17I think it worked against me and then it worked for me because I have always carried myself as a professional because of that. I was trying to overcome my young face.
- 42:27I was trying to get my clients like they were my grandparents because that's truly the relation that I could reference.
- 42:33And I think I serve them better because of it. And the expertise, you know, you can't walk into a room talking about how you're the reverse mortgage person and not know your stuff.
- 42:43And so I think all of those things have helped me overcome any age difference.
- 42:48The first conception I see a lot too is like, oh, well, I'm 60 now. I guess I should turn my practice to reverse.
- 42:54Okay, there's still a lot of things you got to know to just switch that. And it can help. I mean, being of the same age range, I've seen a lot of success in there too.
- 43:03But I don't want anybody to discredit themselves because it can be done no matter what you look like, what you're, you know, what age you are or whatever.
- 43:11It's just about being the expert and caring and doing your service. Okay, great.
- 43:16So the future then for reverse mortgages, I'm looking at some stats and this is from Investopedia.
- 43:23I don't see what their source is. Oh, it's a, it's a normal is their source.
- 43:28But in 2021, it looks like they said there was how many, how many, where was that number in terms of total reverse mortgages done in the country?
- 43:42Do you know what that number is? I lost. Not, not currently. I used to know that number. 49,000 in September 2021, the FHA specifically, not including the private.
- 43:54So the FHA backed mortgage insurance reverses 40, 50,000 for the month of September.
- 44:03Let's say here in the federal fiscal year 2021, which ended September 35.
- 44:07Yes, that's a big question is how, what, you know, how many of these could I have could I be doing? You know what I mean?
- 44:13Oh, got it. Yeah. So a really top reverse originator does eight to 12 a month.
- 44:19Okay. The average does four a month. I mean, four is a good producer.
- 44:24There are people who make their business work off of doing two a month, you know, they can pay more.
- 44:29They don't always have to be careful. But yeah, the numbers are skewed down for sure.
- 44:34As a top producer and forward, I think does something like 30, 40 loans a month.
- 44:38And 30, 40 of these, you're going to have a pretty big team helping absorb a lot of the FaceTime phone calls paperwork to get to that level.
- 44:47And it looks here gender wise. Maybe this is just because of who dies first, but the female borrowers.
- 44:53It's 35% according to 20% roughly for male. So you work with more like widows.
- 45:00In my practice, not so much, but there are reverse specialists who work exclusively with widows.
- 45:06So that's definitely a thing. In my practice, I ended up really financially savvy.
- 45:11So I ended up attracting kind of attorney types and financial guys. So you got to hang with those conversations.
- 45:18I think it depends on the originator to not it's not just, you know, everything out there.
- 45:23All right. Well, then let's just get your last last question is what's your opinion on the future of reverse?
- 45:31I think it's here to stay. I think it's here in a big way. And I think it's going to be the same in grace for the boomer's retirement over the next 20 years.
- 45:40I think everyone's finally seen that we can't ignore the home equity.
- 45:46And I think it's something like 90% of baby boomers have no interest in leaving their home. They love their home.
- 45:53And so this helps marry those two concepts of lifestyle where I want to be and financials where I have to be.
- 46:00It helps marry it. And I think it's just going to be, I mean, I've got my whole career on it.
- 46:06Interesting. You say that because it reminds me of it's also a way to continue, you know, loan volume or production as to your point earlier.
- 46:13Now we're all in these two 3% loans. The lack of inventory. Where am I going to go? Like all that stuff, right?
- 46:21How do you continue to keep that loan volume? That's why I talk about niches, right? Because there's always a niche that needs the service.
- 46:27And so this as well as a divorce is one of those niches that are always going to need service.
- 46:34And you can do both too because silver divorce is on the rise. Yes.
- 46:38So if you know your reverse stuff and you know the divorce stuff, oh, that's beautiful.
- 46:42And if you're listening to this and you're getting more silver like me, that might be an appropriate road for you.
- 46:49At least look into it. There's a ton of misinformation. The biggest thing when we hear negative things comes down to they don't understand how it actually works.
- 46:59I just thought of this real quick. One last question because this is what I help a lot of people do is like with content showing up online your personal brand.
- 47:07What do you think about the necessity for having a brand or presence online serving reverse?
- 47:14I think it's absolutely necessary. Not because seniors are online, although they are. They are on Facebook, right? They're watching their grandkids pictures. They're interacting with their family that way.
- 47:25Not because of them directly, but because of the referral partners, your your realtors, your financial planners, your attorneys, they all are running their businesses online as well.
- 47:34And so when they need to refer someone, they're looking online first. So I think it's really important.
- 47:40And as well, you're often working with some of the family members.
- 47:44Good point. Yes, the kid in New York is trying to help their California parents. They're going to look for you online. If they don't find you well, then they're going to reroute to a different provider, typically.
- 47:54Right. And what I saw about you in doing my research is you are doing a good job with your Google business profile because you have 25 reviews on there, which is great.
- 48:03And they're all five stars. And so that's also one of those, right? That's the first impression.
- 48:08I'm going to go to Google, type in, you know, your name or whatever. And here you are. And you're like, Oh, great. First piece of credibility.
- 48:14Yeah. And 25 is hard to get for reverse.
- 48:17I know.
- 48:19I see the four guys with like 300 views. I'm like, Oh, that'd be nice.
- 48:24Well, look, I know we are at the end of our time available. This has been wonderfully educational. You are obviously an amazing human being serving a crowd of, you know, audience of people who really needed.
- 48:34Thank you for involved for doing that, showing up and serving in the world.
- 48:38And as we said, we're going to put links to your private Facebook group, all the other things that you noted there so that people can connect with you.
- 48:45Is there anywhere else you want to direct them? Or is that pretty much it? Facebook group?
- 48:48Pretty much it. I mean, I'm on Facebook a lot of my day helping train. So yeah.
- 48:53Great. Well, grateful for you to be here, Christina. Thank you so much.
- 48:58Listeners, you know what to do. If you like this episode, please let us know leave a review and also make sure you check out the resources that we provided and we'll see you on the next one.
- 49:06Hey, thanks for tuning into this episode of the mortgage marketing radio podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember if you like this episode, please leave us a review that helps us reach more people and bring more good value and content to you are listeners.
- 49:19And then don't forget if you are a loan officer who wants more agent referrals in less time.
- 49:26Be sure to check out the mortgage marketing pro membership at mortgagemarketing.pro and learn more about our turnkey system of agent classes that puts you front and center of your local real estate agents attracting agents instead of chasing them and getting agent referrals like clockwork every single month.
- 49:45Just like Kerry Cobb who her first year in the business with closing over 75 loans achieved 40% of those 75 loans exclusively from agent classes.
- 49:57And if you want to learn how she did it now, you can do it to once again go to mortgage marketing pro and I'll see you over there. Thanks for listening.
- 50:04Bye for now.
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