Westerville, Ohio-based national mortgage lender Revolution Mortgage has entered into the reverse mortgage business, and has appointed industry veteran Peter Morris to serve as VP of reverse mortgage lending to roll the product out to its national branches.
Originally founded in 2018, Revolution Mortgage is a direct mortgage lender and will aim to expand the availability of reverse mortgages to its national branch presence, Morris said in an interview with RMD. The company knew that in order to navigate the specifics of reverse, they would need to rely on the expertise of a product specialist. Morris has been working exclusively in the reverse mortgage business since 2017, and has been a mortgage professional since 1980.
“There are a lot of people trying to get into the reverse space, and they are finding it very difficult because reverse mortgages are not easy to do,” Morris told RMD. “Because you deal with seniors like myself, we like to move at a different pace, and a lot of the younger people can’t move at that pace. So they don’t understand the product.”
This was why Revolution enlisted the services of Morris and his team to make its own reverse mortgage division a reality, he explained.
“I do all the training for everybody, and I want to make sure our platform is 100%,” he said. “So I do presentations throughout the country for real estate agents, financial planners and borrowers, because the product is so good.”
Morris owned his own mortgage company from 1998 to 2008, taking time off of work to recover from treatment of a brain tumor. When he rejoined the mortgage business a few years later, he first developed and nurtured his passion for reverse mortgages working at companies including Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, AmeriFirst Financial and Amres Corporation until this past summer when he was enlisted by Revolution.
“I decided when I got back in the business that I didn’t really want to own my own mortgage company anymore, and that’s when I really focused on reverse,” he explained. “And then I slowly spiraled out of doing both and just focused on reverse, because I saw the potential and the real need for borrowers. The product has changed over the years and has become so great today that I strictly only focus on helping seniors enjoy the rest of their lives.”
Morris will be assisted in the new division by his daughter, Nicole Webster, who works on back-end matters and business development. She will also assist with the greater implementation of newer technologies into the division’s business operations, Morris said.
When asked about any potential message he has for the wider reverse mortgage industry, Morris said that the relative newness of Revolution as a company helps bring a defined vision to the reverse mortgage market.
“We’re a young company and have a great vision, which is one of the big reasons I did come here,” he said. “They don’t want to just get into the reverse space because maybe some margins compressed a little bit. They do see that there is a great need to help seniors moving forward.”
That attitude comes from demographic strength, an increasingly older U.S. population and a need for seniors to access the equity they’ve built up in their homes, Morris said.
For the next 20 years, it is going to be a tremendous opportunity to help people,” he said. “My tagline is ‘help seniors enjoy the rest of their lives.’ That’s the reason I am at Revolution because, again, it’s another tool in the tool belt. It’s not a ‘let’s see,’ or ‘let’s help out our compression.’ It’s ‘let’s help seniors out.’ That’s what Revolution is all about.”
