CRMP: Across the Kitchen Table in your backyard, and you can’t get access to it, but it’s there and is potentially significant.” Fast forward to the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic eras. Attitudes have changed amid skyrocketing home values. The value of that block of ice has grown, but it’s still illiquid. At the same time, instability in financial markets has planted the fear of running out of money into the minds of retirees and those planning for retirement. “Here is where the reverse mortgage really can shine,” says Downey. “When it is properly understood and explained, it enables the financial advisers and their clients to be able to tap into home equity, to create liquidity, to melt some of that ice. The reverse mortgage product is really a gateway for people to expand their current financial and retirement resources to achieve the security they’re looking for.” Headwinds Persist Still, headwinds remain. Some financial advisers are catching on, but many others still lack an understanding of the product. They don’t mention it for many reasons—fear of looking unknowledgeable, compliance policies at their firms that prohibit discussing home equity, lack of revenue from reverse mortgages and fiduciary prohibitions against recommending that clients invest with borrowed money. This is where Downey and his team emphasize their roles as educators and “translators,” explaining a complicated concept in simple terms. They present the pros and cons of reverse mortgages, making it clear the product shouldn’t be sold but prescribed, if it fits, to address the needs of clients under particular circumstances. “Given the tumultuous times we’re in right now with financial markets, home equity is for many people not only a last resort but also the best result to restructuring financial arrangements, so the financial planners can help them take full advantage of all of their assets, not just some of their assets,” Downey says. One financial planner educated in reverse mortgages compared them to a Swiss Army knife loaded with multiple uses. Such properly educated financial advisers bring Harbor Mortgage into their conversations with clients to explain reverse mortgages. “They’re not recommending the reverse mortgage,” Downey says. “What they’re recommending is that the client understands what it is and what it isn’t.” Strict ethics guide the selling process, Downey says. At Harbor Mortgage, Rule No. 1 is, “Do the right thing for each client every time.” Rule No. 2? “Don’t break Rule No. 1.” Status of CRMP Downey’s CRMP “absolutely” fits into that strict code of ethics. “The CRMP identifies people who are really serious about this business,” he says. “CRMPs are like the Eagle Scouts of the business. They’ve been tried. They’ve been tested. They are held to a higher standard, and that should be recognized.” For 13 years, Downey served on the NRMLA Board of Directors. He marveled at the association’s capabilities to convene competitors to collaborate for the good of the industry and the leadership that has sustained the association. As an industry advocate, he is working with Harbor Mortgage Solutions partner Brett Kirkpatrick to permanently repeal a burdensome Massachusetts law— suspended for the COVID-19 pandemic but sunsetting in March 2023—that requires in-person counseling for consumers seeking reverse mortgages. “We’re not there yet, but we’re close,” he says. Downey’s commitment to civic causes originated with Boston College, the Jesuit institution educating students for the service of others. While serving on Boston College’s Alumni Association board in the late 1980s, Downey cofounded the groundbreaking Second Helping to collect perishable food from restaurants, corporate cafeterias and other eateries and redistribute it through the Greater Boston Food Bank. The program, among the first of its kind in the country, ran successfully for 18 years. Through the alumni board and by tapping into connections made through his civic service, Downey also helped launch Rebuilding Together America, originally Christmas in April*Boston, to recruit volunteers to refurbish the homes of people in need, especially low-income elderly individuals. “Through volunteerism, Across the Kitchen Table continued from page 15 16 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MARCH–APRIL 2023
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