OLDER PEOPLE DON’T fear dying, Greg Gianoplus has learned. They fear running out of money and becoming a burden to others. Watching them cut back on their lifestyles and skip simple joys, such as going out to dinner, saddens him. But he is gratified to offer a solution. “Reverse mortgages and the flexibility of payment relief have been a real game-changer for so many of our clients,” he says. “They often reach out to us and thank us long after closing.” Gianoplus’ success in reverse mortgages has taken his career from an initial foray on Wall Street to the streets of a North Carolina beach town. His passion for the added credibility his own CRMP designation lends to his career has inspired a workplace culture that prizes the credential among his team members. There in Wrightsville, NC, in greater Wilmington, Gianoplus entered the finance industry and spent his first 20 years working with conventional mortgages. He started his own mortgage company in 1999. He sold that company, with about 130 employees, in 2008. AAXA, the company he founded, included a reverse mortgage division for strategic purposes, but he knew little about day-to-day reverse operations. Eventually, he “got in the reverse trench and learned.” “I always enjoyed being a specialist in a field of general practitioners,” he says. “I liked being the go-to guy for niche solutions.” With his kids still at home, he approached a local bank where the employees knew his reputation and offered to start a reverse mortgage division. Later, amid a merger and the new bank’s divestiture of its mortgage businesses, he took the team to a former competitor, Alpha Mortgage Corp. That was in 2016, and he remains there today. “I went back to a pure mortgage lender that’s got mortgage DNA pumping through its veins,” he says. “I knew we’d be stable from that perspective. They wouldn’t change their appetite to have me and the team. This was a nice complement to a very reputable and capable shop. Reverse mortgage lending was probably the only product line in which they didn’t have experience. It was a very nice fit.” As the reverse mortgage industry pursued ways to penetrate the purchase side, he was able to add HECM for Purchase to the division’s portfolio when Alpha opened doors to existing referral partners, including local builders and one of the area’s largest real estate firms. “We don’t have to bring doughnuts to get in the door,” Gianoplus says. Today, about 23 percent of his division’s transactions are HECM for Purchase. Many clients are transplants from the Northeast confronting the reality that the equity cashed out from the sale of their previous homes can’t cover desirable properties in coastal North Carolina. A reverse purchase money loan at 40 percent to 55 percent loan-to-value of the purchase price can, in essence, double their all-cash purchasing power. Partnering builders and real estate agents appreciate the option of available, budget-friendly financing that keeps potential clients from settling on less-expensive or competing options. “The clients are using the reverse purchase-only strategy to buy the home they really want,” Gianoplus says. CRMP Extends Retirement ‘Runway’ A Chat With Greg Gianoplus, CRMP, Channel Leader, HECM Banking Division, Alpha Mortgage Corp. By M. Diane McCormick Greg Gianoplus CRMP: Across the Kitchen Table 16 REVERSE MORTGAGE / SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2022
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