Reverse Mortgage Daily Readers,
Today we are thrilled to announce that HW Media has acquired Reverse Mortgage Daily (RMD) from Aging Media Network, Inc.
Since RMD was founded by John Yedinak in 2007, the publication has focused on being an industry-led news source, offering a down-to-earth, personal and independent perspective on reverse mortgages. The values and strategy fostered by RMD’s founders and team align perfectly with HW Media’s values and strategy. RMD will continue to be an industry-led news source, and its readers will benefit from the resources and housing industry lens of HW Media. I’m thrilled to work with RMD Editor Chris Clow to bring this strategy to life.
“I’m excited about RMD’s future in the hands of HW Media and am confident they have the resources and drive to take it to the next level,” said John Yedinak, founder of Reverse Mortgage Daily.
You all know RMD well, so let me provide a little background on HW. I formed HW Media in 2016 through the acquisition of HousingWire. The vision for HW Media’s business was that we would build a multi-brand business media company focused on real estate, housing finance and financial services markets. HousingWire proved to be the perfect foundation for this strategy, and in the last five years we’ve tripled the number of readers, launched awesome new editorial products and events, and built an incredible community of housing professionals. We’ve also had the opportunity to launch and acquire new brands – including FinLedger and RealTrends.
In building HW Media, part of my job is recruiting and empowering the best business media professionals out there to cover news, create content and serve our audiences and clients. Another equally important priority is having a point of view on where the housing and financial services markets are headed and ensuring that we’re strategically moving in the right direction. A trend that can’t be ignored is our aging population and the impact on the housing market.
Over the next 20 years, the percentage of Americans over the age of 65 is anticipated to expand from less than 15% to over 20% of the population. But this growing demographic has a problem – retirement wealth for “younger baby boomer” cohorts that saved in 401Ks and IRAs is notably lower than for early-Boomers who saved for retirement through defined benefit plans.
According to the Urban Institute, the homeownership rate for seniors ages 65 and older is close to 80%. With underfunded retirement savings vehicles, home equity may prove to be one of the most important financial assets for funding a comfortable retirement. My view is that HECM products will continue to grow in importance as a critical home equity extraction vehicle for our aging population of homeowners.
A component of the operating strategy will be ensuring that the HW Media forward mortgage and real estate agent and brokerage audience segments have access to news and information impacting the reverse mortgage vertical. “This is an exciting development that has the ability to unlock powerful marketing communications opportunities between two previously separate and distinct audiences,” says Ashley Smith, head of marketing and communications at Finance of America Reverse.
The combination of RMD and HW Media will not only support RMD’s continued independent coverage of the reverse mortgage market for reverse mortgage professionals, but will also support the expansion of this knowledge across HW’s broad audience of forward mortgage and real estate professionals.
This is a Moving Markets Forward opportunity.
Sincerely,
