The brainchild of several reverse mortgage “veterans,” Reverse Mortgage Funding is launching this week amid a sea of industry and product change.
Led by former MetLife execs Craig Corn, Robert Sivori and Mike Mooney and industry veterans David Peskin and St. John Bannon, the company now counts 30 employees with plans to grow its reverse mortgage business.
“I don’t think we’ve ever been more excited about the space,” says David Peskin, RMF president. “We have a collective management team coming together to build a business around what we have envisioned for years.”
The company is licensed to purchase closed loans from correspondents in 46 states and Washington, D.C., with plans to build a wholesale business by year-end. The company has an application pending for approval to issue Ginnie Mae HMBS.
While the reverse mortgage industry is poised for change as the Federal Housing Administration is gaining the authority it needs to make adjustments to the current product, RMF sees the timing as a particular opportunity.
“We are building a platform that gives us a competitive advantage and we are designing the business around those changes,” Peskin says.
The changes will make for a safer product and market overall, says Bob Sivori, RMF chief operating officer.
“I don’t think there could be a better time to be reetentering the space,” Sivori says. “First, we enter without a legacy platform and any legacy loan issues. This is at a time when FHA is making some changes to the program that will make the HECM safter not only for FHA but also for lenders and borrowers.”
RMF has been mum on its investment sources, but says its leadership maintains control of the reverse-only company.
“We don’t have competing corporate priorities,” Sivori says. “Our goal is for our management to operate as independent mortgage company, making decisions that make sense.”
The company plans to work in the traditional Home Equity Conversion Mortgage space, with an eye toward proprietary products on the horizon and the HECM for Purchase space.
“We see the HECM for purchase as an area for growth in the near term,” Sivori says. “We also see how using HECMs for financial planning purposes would be an area for growth potential.”
The company is based in Melville, New York and Bloomfield New Jersey with operations nationwide.
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
