Board Room With Reverse Mortgages, It’s All About Originators, Originators, Originators! By Jim Cory IN 2000, a sweaty, excited Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a speech to his company in which he repeatedly yelled “developers, developers, developers” something to the tune of 14 times. His point was simple and clear: developers make the products that make his company relevant. In the mortgage world and, more specifically, the reverse mortgage world, developers don’t fuel our business, but mortgage originators do. Without originators educating the public about reverse mortgages, we don’t have a business. Our industry origination numbers have been rather stagnant over the past decade. We can point to various reasons, such as cuts in principal limit factors (PLF), product changes, financial assessment and the like. But when we look at the relative lack of growth in the reverse mortgage market, I can’t help but think the issue is one of distribution—distribution from originators, of course. In my yelling voice, minus the sweat and the billions of dollars, it’s all about originators, originators, originators! Distribution is the key. More originators—trained, skilled originators—will lead to a significant uptick in our business. Our industry’s biggest volumes came when large players with huge distribution were involved, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America and MetLife. Several large players in the forward origination market have made significant inroads in the reverse mortgage space, and this is a welcome development. As a trade association, NRMLA should, and does, support this effort, with education opportunities, conferences and, of course, this magazine. But we need to do more. For too long, our industry has looked to keep this business for ourselves—and for mostly good reasons. Most mortgage originators, not to mention our borrowers, really didn’t understand our product. But years later, after countless ads promoted by celebrity pitchmen, mailers and time to let the public understand the product, we don’t really have that problem—or at least we shouldn’t. I envision one path our business can take in its next stage: accept and promote our product through the massive forward mortgage distribution channels. Retail, wholesale, forward, reverse—our reverse mortgage product should simply be one more mortgage option every originator offers and is proficient in selling. Our reverse mortgage originators, brokers, lenders and vendors and NRMLA itself should be doing everything they can to educate and embrace forward distribution of our product. It may be the only way we experience real, meaningful growth. As with any business line, if you’re not growing, then you’re dying. To sustain our important business well into the future, we need a giant leap in distribution. Let’s see if this product can reach its full potential, of course only with enough distribution—originators, originators, originators! Jim Cory To see a portion of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s presentation, visit bit.ly/3P0SVw6. 6 REVERSE MORTGAGE / SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2022
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