to HUD protocols, we’re not the adviser. We’re not the financial planner. We are counseling according to HUD guidelines. We review the client’s budget and provide information on any public or government assistance that may be available.” When it’s time for the session, the only person the client can’t invite is the loan officer. Customers are often encouraged to bring family members or trusted friends to be the second set of ears. “Just like when you go to the doctor’s office and get a lot of information, you walk out of there, and you’ve forgotten half of it,” says Cosentini. “It’s nice to have someone there with you to help fill in the gaps afterward.” Building Career Paths Housing counseling agencies agree that diversity and language capabilities strengthen their offerings and equip them to better connect with clients. At Credit.org, a great culture and workplace attract a diverse pool of candidates, and today, 80 percent of HECM counselors are people of color, with an average tenure of eight and a half years, says Opperman. Espino—a first-generation U.S. citizen—joined Credit.org from a real estate background and thought he would stay for six months. That was in 2008. Since then, he has been trained and promoted from within. Now, his clients are teaching him the pathways to staying in their homes. “The strategies of the Baby Boomers and how they did it, that gets me up in the morning,” he says. “Getting that knowledge and sharing it with other borrowers, it’s helping. It’s knowing that I did something good. There’s never a dull moment here.” With the popularity and flexibility of remote work, Cambridge recently was able to hire a diverse group of seven experienced, HUD-certified counselors from all over the country. “The housing counselors are so passionate,” Cosentini says. “Hiring remotely has been amazing. I was able to find counselors with so much experience from different areas and different cultures.” And, she adds, “there’s really not much to sell. We’ve got great benefits. We’ve got a great team. We’ve been around forever. All of them had done their research about Cambridge and were very excited to come work for us.” Mohan attracts a diverse and bilingual team from his home base in West Palm Beach, FL. He agrees that excellent health and retirement benefits help his agency—a nonprofit, like all HUD-certified housing counseling agencies—attract and keep talent. The people best suited for counseling have innate compassion, Mohan adds. “Some of the clients are really stressed out,” he says. “Sometimes they can be rude. That doesn’t mean they are rude. It’s just that they are in a position where we can calm them down. Their hair’s on fire. Let’s throw some water on it.” Lender-Counselor Dynamic Counselors have seen “an evolution with lenders,” Espino says. Early in the relationship, some originators treated counseling like a chore to get done, but today, they see the advantages in better-educated clients. “Whatever they tell their clients, we’re telling them from another angle,” Espino adds. “Now, more and more lenders see the advantage of their borrowers going through the counseling process.” Preparing materials before the counseling session and posting them on the CounselingDocs.org tool makes the counseling session more robust and creates those “aha!” moments, Espino also says. “The lenders coach their clients to be prepared with the numbers and to have the same documents by using that tool,” he adds. Lenders are barred from steering clients toward any particular housing agencies, but Mohan notes that HUD’s “ten required intermediary agencies” rule is a minimum. Lenders can provide an additional list of agencies, going outside the software package that pulled agency names from the HUD Exchange, which is rotated periodically. In recent years, counseling has progressed from in-person to telephonic. In Massachusetts, a law was recently passed that extended virtual counseling by phone or video through March 31, 2024. Some companies are planning or already offering video calls. “In videoconferencing, you’re looking at me, and I’m looking at you,” Mohan says. “We can talk. We can Counselors Cut Confusion continued from page 27 28 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MAY–JUNE 2023
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