The National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB)’s national conference concluded on Monday in Las Vegas, and featured a more substantive reverse mortgage presence this year owing to a new partnership and certification announced in March.
NAMB National, held at Caesars Las Vegas between September 8-11, highlighted a series of professional development opportunities it has made available to members. These include two new designations: Certified FHA Mortgage Specialist (CFMP) and Certified Reverse Mortgage Specialist (CREV), which both featured courses for attendees on-site at the event.
The event also featured other informational reverse mortgage sessions hosted by Liberty Reverse Mortgage executive Mike Kent and Plaza Home Mortgage VP of Reverse Mortgages Mark Reeve. The first CREV class took place on the 11th with Liberty’s Director of Training Jud Lyman.
That class included information related to age, property and home equity requirements; information about how loan amounts are determined; the importance of the product type; potential impacts of a credit report on a reverse mortgage; sales tips and best practices for working with borrowers of HECM qualifying age; and insight into “overcoming objections and working through underwriting issues.”
When initially asked about the establishment of a reverse mortgage partnership at NAMB, the association’s president Ernest Jones, Jr. told RMD that it came from an industry partners committee that began digesting more of the issues associated with retirement.
“We have an industry partners committee [who] will go out and research and talk with organizations or companies that provide different types of resources, such as education or other mortgage tools,” Jones told RMD in March.
Finding a way to serve those older borrowers was one factor that led to a partnership and creation of the CREV certification.
“For example, in the reverse mortgage course, there’s a lot of that going on now with the aging baby boomers community, and what we want to do is to make sure that the mortgage providers or the brokers are well-educated on how those products work and when to offer them. If they have questions, we want to ensure they can have resources to go to,” Jones said in March.
According to Jones, while reverse mortgage companies have faced difficulty with connecting to senior borrowers, the additional refinements to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) reverse mortgage program and recent regulations have helped improve perceptions.
“We welcome the oversight [of reverse mortgages] because it makes it better for the consumers, but it also makes it better for us as brokers,” he said at the time. “Because now we know that there’s someone overlooking the program and the products, and we can make sure we provide education for our members and borrowers.”
