Henry David Thoreau said “However mean your life is, meet it and live it.”. That sounds great in theory but what practical steps can we take to weather the current winds of change in the HECM industry?
Continue readingWhen You Feel Like Giving Up
From time to time we all can feel like giving up, throwing in the towel and walking away. It may be the challenges of our profession, a relationship or business venture.
Continue readingThe Mavens of Creative Aging
Are your reverse mortgage prospects mavens? Are you? According to Wikipedia, a maven is “a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others”.
Continue readingNew HECM Products Nixed
There was a rush to market by a handful of lenders to offer fixed rate variant products which still fell within the guidelines of the federally insured reverse mortgage or HECM program. While FHA has not directly addressed these new products Ginnie Mae has.
Continue readingEvery Problem Once was a Solution
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What once worked may be problematic today
Oddly our topic that every problem once was a solution reminds me of the now extinct standard fixed rate HECM. It was a solution to borrowers seeking maximum funds or a guaranteed interest rate which became a problem loan for FHA when assessing risk and performance. This is a prime example of how behaviors, business models or marketing may become problems once they are not up to date anymore. On a personal level we can become angry with ourselves wondering why we act a certain way in a given circumstance. On the surface it may appear to be irrational. But is it? It’s not so much that a current behavior or pattern is irrational but rather that it no longer works. What was once a solution is now a problem.
You may have adapted a new strategy or way of doing business based on…
Download video transcript here
Looking for more reverse mortgage news, training & technology? Visit ReverseFocus.com today.
March 2014 Top HECM Lenders Report
Download your March Top 100 Retail HECM Lenders Report Here.
There was substantial movement in the top 10 for March endorsements. See all of the active lender rankings in this month’s report.
This report was compiled from data courtesy of Reverse Market Insight.
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8 Ways to Reach Boomers & Their Parents
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You know how to reach reverse mortgage prospects. Between your own marketing expertise and all the tools, training and technology available from ReverseFocus.com, you’ve got lead generation down to a science.
But with the Boomers now a “sandwich generation” — as well as those on the oldest end of the spectrum potential reverse mortgage candidates themselves — it pays to appeal to both Boomers and their parents for maximum impact.
Here are eight creative ways to reach both audiences:
- Develop webinars to attract internet-savvy prospects, and consider catchy titles such as “Heart to Heart for Your Smart Future”.
- Contact medical doctors, chiropractors, integrative medicine clinics and other health service providers popular among Boomers who work with a senior population, and ask about holding talks or workshops there. Emphasize the win-win: you’ll bring potential new business to their door.
- Offer midday or after work talks at YMCAs, churches and synagogues, Lion’s Clubs, Elks Lodges, and similar membership organizations. Large corporations may even be willing to hire you to give workshops (e.g., a lunchtime talk series) as long as it is informative and not sales oriented.
- Discover where Boomer women in your region convene: women’s business networking groups, college alumni events, wellness conferences, etc., and offer a talk on the benefits of creating solvency for older women, particularly if they live alone or believe they may in the future (single, widowed, divorced, etc).
- Research city guides of community services and target these service centers as possible speaking venues.
- Blog! The simpler and shorter the article, the more likely it will be read — and shared via social media. Make a list of topics or questions Boomers and their parents might most want to know more about (not only reverse mortgage information, but anything relevant to aging in place, their home, health, finances, etc.)
- Arrange a roundtable conversation about hot topics, such as “The challenges of aging” or “How to navigate and work through conflict,” that will appeal to both Boomers and their aging parents.
- Contact estate planning attorneys, mediators, therapists, libraries and other sources that accept for-profit organizations as speakers (emphasize your senior service focus).
File It & Fuggetaboutit
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Keys to Mastering Your Paperwork
Fuggetaboutit! It’s the quintessential New York phrase made famous in films like Donnie Brasco, Good Fellas and the Sopranos to name a few. While there are many definitions of the phrase the most common is to let go of an issue or problem not worth the additional mental or emotional energy. When it comes to managing our work day perhaps this is a phrase we can adopt. File it and fuggetaboutit! Most of us as reverse mortgage professionals manage vast amounts of information: Call backs, applications, conditions on a property, booking a speaking venue, ordering leads and more. Quite frankly we cannot manage these tasks efficiently without a system. One system I have grown to love over the years comes from productivity guru David Allen in his book “Getting Things Done”. Allen describes a system of 43 folders. One manila folder for each day of the month (31) and one for each month of the year. It works like this. You receive a form in the mail today March 28th that needs to be mailed back by next Friday. You simple put the paper in your folder marked the 31st or 1st. Fuggetaboutit! As each day of the month comes you pull the file out for that given day. Guess what?
Seven Ways to Work Happier
The more relaxed, healthy and well rested you are, the better you’ll be able to listen and the more thorough and specific the service you’ll provide. Here are seven ways to improve your workplace, mood and manner:
Continue readingThe Coming Revival?
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Our Industry’s Market Opportunities & Challenges
As a child growing up in the pentecostal church I often heard adults speak in hushed tones about the coming revival. Good things were just right around the corner. As I grew older I realized the promise of revival was a motivation for the faithful to endure despite present circumstances. Similarly there are more stories, rumors and hopes that the reverse mortgage industry will experience it’s own revival in the coming years. An article last Monday in Reuters entitled “U.S. retirees return to reverse mortgages, big banks stay away” addresses the baby boomer wave and the increasing need to fund retirement. It opens with “U.S. baby boomers desperate for retirement income are increasingly turning back to a financial product that, after the housing bust, had been left for dead…
See Secruian’s retirement study here
Download a transcript of this episode here.
Looking for more reverse mortgage news, training & technology? Visit Reverse Focus today here.
