May-June2020 Issue

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series through 2020 in which Reverse Mortgage is examining different regions of the country. This issue focuses on the Southeast. The full effects of COVID-19 were not known at the time of this writing. REVERSE MORTGAGE LENDERS in the Southeast still feel the effects of regulatory changes that have crushed demand for the product over the last few years. However, some lenders in the region saw a flurry of activity at the end of 2019 and in early 2020, and they hope it will continue through the year. “It went from struggling to get loans to, all of a sudden, they’re just knocking on the door,” says Alison Calamia, a CRMP with America’s Mortgage Resource Inc. in Metairie, LA. It’s not clear what fueled the spike, say Calamia and other reverse mortgage professionals. Some attribute it to national advertising campaigns, like American Advisors Group’s commercials featuring actor Tom Selleck. Higher home values are another factor, says Karen Neal, an account executive with 1st Nations Reverse Mortgage in Georgia. “This allows the clients to borrow more on their reverse mortgage,” she explains. But longer-term trends also have influenced the reverse market in the Southeast, which Reverse Mortgage magazine defines asAlabama, Florida,Georgia, Louisiana,Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Financial advisers are becoming more open to reverse mortgages, and clients are less concerned about leaving their homes to their heirs, a practice with a long tradition in the agrarian South. The region benefits, as well, from its continuing appeal as a retirement destination, not just for people from colder climates but also for retirees moving within states, lenders say. Still, like their peers in other areas of the country, reverse mortgage lenders in the Southeast have seen a dra- matic drop in HECM endorsements since the peak years around 2008. In Florida, the region’s highest-volume state, HECM endorsements topped out at 19,779 in 2008. Endorsements in the Sunshine State totaled 2,782 in 2019, down from 3,643 in 2018. A lot of last year’s activity came late, says CRMP Phil Dixon, a reverse mortgage adviser with PS Financial in Miami, FL. “I did almost as much business in the fourth quarter as I did the rest of the year.” It was a similar story in Tennessee for Mike and Catherine Holton, who own and operate New Castle Mortgage in Nashville. “We definitely saw an uptick in business, but tradi- tionally our fall is good anyway,” says Mike Holton, pres- ident of the firm. Southeast Lenders Look for Signs of a Turnaround First Quarter of 2020 Offers Hope By Joel Berg Alison Calamia Mike Holton 30 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MAY-JUNE 2020