It was refreshing. Attending a recent sales meeting of mortgage brokers the keynote speaker lit up the room. He outlined how he refused to accept that his business would shrink due to the housing crash and the countless regulations that followed. Tough words coming from a mortgage wholesaler, but true. Not only did he survive but he actually exploded his business while others accepted defeat.
Longtime Reverse Focus member Steven Sless put his skills to work getting national exposure and educating listeners on the merits of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program.
Listen to Steve’s interview on the national podcast BlogTalkRadio here.
The Housing Shift: Part 1
While the majority of seniors hope to age in place, especially given the plethora of services and technologies available to make it easier than ever before to remain safely at home, some people will need or choose to move into a senior living community, whether for companionship, prepared meals, or because one partner needs some assistance. And while the options have broadened in recent years, technology now makes senior living smarter, safer — and customized.
Consider Avanti Senior Living, which offers resort-style living with concierge services. The word Avanti means “forward” in Italian, and the Texas-based company turns on innovation. Along with the expected range of senior living options, from lifestyle to assisted living to memory care, Avanti offers the unexpected, such as an onsite restaurant that prepares individual meals to order, and the “A” crew: a program that allows young friends and visitors, including residents’ grandchildren, to spend time with the seniors, co-creating activities, games, and events that are fun for everyone involved.
Perhaps most importantly, Avanti maintains an up-to-date medical history on each resident, with personal notes available via electronic health care records that can be updated in real-time.
Keeping Seniors Connected
As we’ve discussed before, the aging Boomer cohort, 76 million strong, is fueling much of this technological foray into ways to enhance the aging experience. Housing, of course, is the foundation of everyone’s future, whether someone chooses to apply for a reverse mortgage loan to help them remain in the house they love, downsize to a more manageable space, or relocate closer to family.
Like Avanti, Lifespace Communities is at the forefront of the senior living movement, focused on CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Communities) which offer the full array of housing options that may be needed as someone ages.
What’s new is the focus on technology. In 2016, Lifespace expanded its network bandwidth and implemented campus-wide WiFi, so residents can be connected in their apartments as well as in common areas — something unheard of just a few years ago.
Explains Lifespace VP of IT John Coulture, “Only a certain percentage of our residents use mobile devices, but more and more children and grandchildren are getting residents iPads or smartphones as gifts, so we wanted to start to implement technologies to encourage use of these products.”
Let There Be Light!
For those intent on remaining at home, small techno-tweaks can make a big difference.
We discussed how something as simple as changing light bulbs, easy enough to manage in our younger years, can be potentially life-threatening for an older person if they fall off a ladder. The Office of Chronic Care Advocacy president William Fralin discovered a brilliant workaround you may wish to share with your reverse mortgage clients, prospects, and their families:
“Last weekend I was on a mission to obtain some sort of ‘task lighting’ for a specific area of my house. While perusing the lighting department at one of the local home centers, I came across a package of three puck lights, LED, and…battery-operated. No wiring! Easy to install: you have the option of either an adhesive disk or using screws. Just figure out where you want it and, within a minute, violà!
“How does this factor into aging in place? These little lights can be utilized in an endless list of places that an individual would need a bit more lighting: inside kitchen cabinets, closets, under counters, and cabinets under the kitchen and bathroom sinks. They don’t get hot like some ‘puck’ lighting fixtures do. Most likely the only expense over the years of life for a LED is the cost of batteries, which is less than the cost of one of the bulbs in the other ‘puck’ lights.
“Along with replacing traditional round doorknobs with the lever style, lowering light switches, and reflective tape on outdoor steps…installing these handy lights make aging in place easier and safer for all of us. Your relatives will rest a bit more easily knowing that their loved one is living in a well-ordered environment.”
The new year is upon us and we can leave 2016 in the rear view mirror, with the exception of HUD’s pending reverse mortgage rules. Are additional HECM reforms truly needed to strengthen the HECM program?
In the wake of the election and the new year, lingering HECM program changes can be easily forgotten. Last May FHA introduced a series of new rules to strengthen the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program. The changes included required HECM counseling prior to signing s mortgage contract, disclosure of all HECM features and options, and most problematically, a 5% lifetime cap on the adjustable rate HECM with a 1% annual interest rate cap. Numerous industry participants and the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association submitted inputs to the agency in the Federal Register. Several months have passed and yet there is no word if these substantial product changes will be enacted. Presently the proposed rule changes are in the final rule stage prior to regulatory review.
Many industry participants have voiced their concern that these changes will negatively impact the HECM program. Perhaps a more relevant point is the question if such changes are even necessary. Is the HECM program’s economic outlook as bleak as HUD’s recent report to Congress suggests?
HUD’s most recent report to Congress shows the HECM portion of FHA’s portfolio is valued at a negative $7.7 billion dollars. That represents a $13 billion dollar swing to the negative dropping from the previous year’s valuation of a positive $6.8 billion. Much of the impact can be attributed to slowing home appreciation upon which much of the economic modeling depends upon.
However, what is somewhat problematic are reports that HUD’s internal assumption are based on 100% of the available principal limit is used at the beginning of the loan. This assumed front-loaded loan balance is then factored based on future interest rates and the borrower’s age. This mathematical approach drastically increase the negative amortization of the HECM loan and the assumed ending loan balance…
Toister Performance Solutions, who assists organizations with customer service, conducted an annual survey on how swiftly customers expect businesses to respond to their emails. In 2014, a four-hour response time was deemed acceptable (the point at which about 80% of people were happy). By 2015, this had moved up to about one hour. In 2014, only 4% of people said they expected a response within 15 minutes; by 2015, 14.5% expected that.
This survey illustrates the importance of setting expectations clearly and at the outset of initial communication. One way to accomplish this is to setup an auto response message that informs users when they can expect a response. Be specific whether it is the same business day or within a few hours. Include a means for urgent requests to reach you encouraging such individuals to call you directly. Here’s one example of an autoresponder to set expectations…
The He(art) of Elder (Eng)agement
In November we featured “Oldchella,” the humorously nicknamed, star-studded ensemble that rocked southern California for two consecutive weekends, featuring musical legends who defined an era: the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, The Who. Besides their iconic status, the participants in Desert Trip had one other trait in common: each was at least 70 years old.
Yet the joke is on those who minimize the importance and impact that mature voices can have on those who sing — and on those who hear them sing.
Young@Heart Chorus requires members be in their 70s — 73, to be exact. One hopeful’s interest was piqued when he was a mere 72, so he was politely asked to reapply in a year. Now 80 and a six-year Young@Heart Chorus veteran, John Reinhart has soloed Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror,” and says he’s never been happier. “When I retired, I told my wife we’d better get a casket; I’ll be gone in six months. The Young@Heart Chorus came along at the right time for me.”
Getting Their Groove On
Making music, whether with one’s voice or another instrument, has repeatedly been demonstrated to be beneficial for mental health. In a recent controlled trial of 200 British adults over 60, those who participated in weekly singing groups for three months had improved mental health (decreased anxiety and depression) compared with those who didn’t sing. These health effects were sustained over a period of at least three months after the weekly singing ended.
By contrast, the benefits of playing a musical instrument did not tend to endure once the playing ceased — unless the participants had played over an extended period of their lives, which may explain why lifelong musicians such as the septuagenarian stars in Oldchella are still jamming with the same gusto as performers a third their age.
Singing the Dying Across the Threshold
Singing can also be highly beneficial for those who are preparing to transition out of this life. At the turn of the millennium, Kate Munger, who had sung to a dear friend as he lay dying a decade earlier, was inspired to create Threshold Choir to bring comfort to the dying. Hearing is the last sense to go, so even someone in a comatose state may receive benefit. Today, there are more than 150 Threshold Choirs throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.
Each choir is composed of a small group of singers (primarily women, though the choirs are open to all) from the local community, who gather at a person’s bedside and sing in calm, a cappella voices for about twenty minutes. These committed volunteers rehearse weekly for the privilege of singing to the dying; most have been Threshold Choir members for many years, and are often well past midlife themselves.
Art for the Heart
Have you ever noticed that the word “heart” contains “art”? That may not be a coincidence, as a research-focused arts blog surveyed the literature and found “the most compelling evidence of the value of the arts revolves around 
improving the lives of older adults.” Confirming the data already discussed, the evidence for (eng)aging with the arts benefits elders in the following ways:
To Be of Use
Finally, art serves the deeper purpose of keeping seniors (eng)aged. And what that looks like may be very different from the more conventional arts just described. Retired social worker Lynn Rayburn, 91, is “convinced her mind would have long ago floated ‘into outer space’ if not for the mental stimulation and social interaction” of Senior Center Without Walls, a Bay Area-based non-profit that aims to ameliorate elder loneliness and social isolation. For Rayburn, who lives alone and is confined to a wheelchair, the telephone classes, such as Sing-Along Broadway, are a lifeline. Rayburn “participates in classes daily, and facilitates five classes as a volunteer, including a session that encourages callers to talk about things they’re grateful for and another that allows them to participate in philosophical debates.” She refers to Senior Center Without Walls as her “art form” and avows, “I couldn’t handle life without being needed.”
As noted last week, January 31st is National Inspire Your Heart with Art Day, a superb moment to encourage the elders in your HECM sphere to (eng)age with whatever form of the arts calls to them for expression, even (especially) if it’s something beyond what we typically think of or refer to as “art”. Creativity in all its forms is ageless, and like wine, can improve over time..
Any mortgage or financial product requires good faith on the part of the company and its representative when working with a potential client. Full disclosure and honesty are non-negotiable when working with homeowners. In addition, every reverse mortgage professional should be fully-informed of the common objections and misconceptions about the HECM.
Maureen Hughes is a real estate professional with Keller Williams in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Her recent column entitled “4 reasons to reconsider a reverse mortgage’ warrants further examination. Are the four concerns or risks she outlines fair and accurate? As Hughes states “…there are some serious issues to be aware of and discuss before you jump on the reverse mortgage bandwagon.”
Troublesome Terms & Interest Rates
Reverse mortgages continue to be maligned as ‘high interest rate’ loans. Such inaccurate statements only serve to strike fear in the hearts of older homeowners and unfairly associate HECMs with predatory lending. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hughes states, “Reverse mortgage interest rates and loan fees in general tend to be higher than standard home loans. Often, reverse mortgages are not able to be renegotiated, so being sure this type of mortgage is the absolute best choice for you and your family.” To be fair, reverse mortgage interest rates could be marginally …
Are you pulling your hair out throughout your day in the office? Do your professional demands outweigh your time, available resources and energy? Such a predicament led me to ask what is the difference between a busy person and a productive one? I’m going to keep it simple this week. List-simple. Here are the key differences between a productive person versus a merely busy individual. Perhaps this is the lifeline you’ve been waiting for.
1. Priorities. Productive people only have a few priorities. Busy people have many priorities which can lead to burnout, time conflicts and job dissatisfaction.
2. Saying ‘No’. Productive people know when to say ‘no’. Busy people say ‘yes’ to every request. Set reasonable and realistic expectations with others and yourself.
3. Think twice. Productive people think twice before taking action. Busy people respond in haste without much….
Credit to Ricky Tang, Contributor to Lifehacker.
Please welcome our newest sponsor Norcom Mortgage. John Luddy is one of the nation’s best reverse mortgage sales professionals. He has trained reverse mortgage professionals how to be successful when sitting face-to-face at the kitchen table with prospective HECM borrowers. Norcom is looking for qualified loan officer candidates. To learn more call 1-860-507-2582 or email John Luddy here
Many people make New Year’s resolutions; few of us tend to stick with them throughout the year. But by tuning in to specific days and events each month, you can boost both your HECM business and senior spirit with intriguing, educational information. For instance:
January is named for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions, so it’s an excellent month for older adults to consider a reverse mortgage — and for LOs to create new ways of reaching appropriate candidates.
According to the National Day Calendar, January is National Mentoring Month, inaugurated by The Harvard School of Public Health and The National Mentoring Partnership in 2002. This might be an auspicious time to speak about new models of aging in intergenerational communities (watch for our upcoming post, This Treehouse Isn’t Just for Kids!) that are springing up around the U.S. and across the globe.
Here are four January highlights that can serve as talking points and action opportunities with your HECM clients and prospects:
1. January 6: National Technology Day. The chronologically gifted are more digitally adept than ever before, as we’ve noted often. Here are some recent posts about how tech is reinvigorating and reimagining what our later years can look like:
You might start a conversation about how technology is helping your elder population — or find out where there’s a need for tech mentoring. Perhaps you can arrange for interested seniors to get tech training at their local senior center, high school, or community college. Bonus: it will connect elders with others, who may also benefit from the interaction.
2. January 19: National Get to Know Your Customers Day (third Thursday of each quarter). A perfect reason to throw a New Year’s open house for clients, past and present, as well as prospects and associates. Ask your current clients to invite anyone whom they think might want to learn about a HECM, but keep the open house itself low-key: a friendly social with healthy snacks and beverages. Have brochures and business cards available, and collect the names and contact information of those to whom you’re introduced. Next week’s outreach will have more warm leads!
3. January 23: National Pie Day. While the calendar is replete with food-related holidays, both official and unofficial, National Pie Day is especially enjoyable because many businesses offer free or discounted pies on January 23rd. If you didn’t hold an open house for Get to Know Your Customers Day, this is another delicious opportunity to connect. Encourage people to bring and share recipes as well as home-baked goodies.
4. January 31: Inspire Your Heart with Art Day. Creativity knows no age, and this day is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the artistic elders in your sphere of influence. A few prior posts that address art and well being:
Besides sharing their own artistic creations, some ways to encourage elders to enjoy the arts include:
With resolutions timed to specific days, themes and activities, it will be easier to build momentum and flow with the changes 2017 is sure to bring.
