EARLY IN HER career, Alina Passarelli didn’t last long in telemarketing for a mortgage company. “My skin is not thick enough,” she says now. But the job’s two-week crash course in mortgage lending changed her life. “I just fell in love with the idea of being able to build solutions for people and create homeownership. I ended up writing my first mortgage that year, and I was hooked.” Since a similar epiphany transitioned her to reverse mortgages in 2007, Passarelli has carved out a role as a pioneer CRMP, riding out the industry’s changes and serving clients across multiple phases of their lives. Born and raised in Minnesota, Passarelli was a student-athlete who studied psychology in college. “Who knew how much I’d use that in this job over the years?” she jokes. In her early 20s, she co-owned a ski and wakeboard boat dealership that she says was more of a hobby than a business. A telemarketing gig was one of her side hustles. After her introduction to mortgage lending, the lifelong learner read everything she could about the field, leading to her role as a full-time forward loan officer. The refinancing boom of the early 2000s kept her busy, but the work felt transactional. When scheduling couples for closings during bank hours became a challenge, Passarelli saw an opportunity. She trained as a closer and, though the concept was strange at the time, began offering notary closings at work or at home, after hours and weekends. Passarelli turned that popular initiative into a business, but she turned down requests to close reverse mortgages, which were unfamiliar to her. Finally, she asked a lender to train her and her staff on the product. In an airport- hotel conference room, they learned about the mechanics of reverse mortgages. Once again, Passarelli was hooked. She says she “started nerding out,” reading and learning everything she could. She had kept in touch with the representative from the lender who held the training and got a call from a regional manager in 2007 who asked if she wanted to originate reverse mortgages. “I’m the worst hire ever,” she told them. She was eight months pregnant, but the lender accommodated her. She wrote her first reverse mortgage that year. “I grew up in a family dedicated to service and giving back,” she says. “When I was younger, I didn’t know how to do that. This was the right time in my life, being a mom and realizing how good it feels to take care of others. I finally had that opportunity in my career to feel like I was doing a really good thing.” To build awareness of reverse mortgages, she held informational sessions in libraries and encouraged banks to hold their own sessions. She remembers a client who was going through a divorce. Passarelli suddenly recognized the name. Learning, Helping and Doing Are Keys to CRMP’s Success A Chat With Alina Passarelli, CRMP: Mutual of Omaha Mortgage Reverse, Edina, MN By M. Diane McCormick Alina Passarelli CRMP: Across the Kitchen Table 14 REVERSE MORTGAGE / JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2023
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