Last month, the Madison, Wis.-based mortgage company Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp.. announced that it has appointed reverse mortgage industry veteran Dan Ventura as its new vice president of reverse mortgage operations.
The hire comes after a series of announcements in February, including the addition of new reverse mortgage investments and the company’s reaffiliation. National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA).
With these new realities at the company in mind, to better understand what drives its reverse mortgage lending philosophy, RMD spoke with Ventura and the company’s executive vice president of reverse lending secondary marketing. We spoke to Peter Sciandra, , to learn more about its nature. Moving the sector forward into 2024.
go backwards at forward speed
When asked about the division’s key goals, Ventura explained that speed is a top priority, further aligning with one of Fairway’s company priorities.
“My main goal is [conducting] We bring reverse mortgages to life at forward speed,” Ventura said. “[Among] Fairway’s core value of responsiveness is the highlight of our efforts. Leveraging our 500+ branches within the company and leveraging them in turn through the creation of education and other opportunities is a great platform for us to expand and grow our current business. ”
Mr. Ventura also discussed the company’s decision to rejoin the NRMLA and what it hopes to accomplish by working with the reverse mortgage industry’s leading trade association.
“We are top four [reverse mortgage] We just want to make sure our voices are heard. [regarding] It’s the future of the industry,” Ventura said. “We just want to do our part to make sure we have a voice and can have a seat at the table in what gets decided in the future.”
Initiatives in growth fields
When asked about the biggest growth potential for Fairway’s reverse mortgage business, Ventura cited the potential benefits of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) for Purchase (H4P) business and the company’s plans for the product in the future. He said he wants to educate more partners about the importance.
“Fairway is a top purchasing financier across products, with our extensive branch network and, more importantly, our large network. [real estate agent] This is kind of a natural feeder program that allows us to get in front of more people and educate them about the H4P process,” Ventura explained.
The company is also in the process of hiring more employees to address the need to educate more current and future employees about H4P as a product concept.
“We’re in the market to recruit top talent, and we’re all about education,” he said. “We want to make sure everyone knows what this product is and isn’t and what benefits it provides for older adults. That’s especially true for H4P. Because so many real estate agents don’t even know H4P exists or what it is.”
These represent notable growth opportunities, Ventura said. He has also seen the direct results of more educational engagement with experts on the H4P product concept.
“I was in the Massachusetts branch last month pushing them to focus more on their reverse business,” Ventura said. “I encouraged them to set up an in-person seminar where people could come together and he could discuss the H4P product.
“We had an event in two weeks with 17 lawyers and real estate agents in attendance. I presented it, and we had a lot of questions, engagement, and questions about what the product could do for our clients. And the sheer disbelief was very moving and convincing.”
Forward integration trends
Other high-end reverse mortgage lenders have recently toyed with the idea of incorporating more forward mortgage specialists into the reverse business, and companies often have different attitudes toward it. Sciandra said Ventura’s existing futures mortgage experience will be beneficial to Fairway.
“Dan has an extensive background on the forward side of the fairway,” Sciandra said. “The idea of forward speed in the reverse business has given us more confidence in reverses internally. We have been looking to expand within forward mortgages for some time, but most of the time reverses are It’s very different from a forward.”
In addition to the core product differences, Sciandra cited the more consultative nature of selling reverse mortgages to senior customers, as well as the existence of different documentation.
Forward and reverse processes
Those differences have led other industry players to become accustomed to a set schedule for loan processing, but Mr. Ventura’s previous experience has helped him identify efficiencies, Mr. Sciandra said.
“Dan came in, looked at it and said, ‘It’s not going to take that long.’ We don’t do that on the forward side. We’re not going to do that on the reverse side,” he explained. “We plan to do reverse mortgages as well as the forward side in terms of response time and the speed of the process itself, and our average closing time has improved significantly.”
In terms of raw numbers, Ventura estimates that an estimated 60% of the company’s files are completed within 30 days from the time a loan is submitted to the time it is processed and moves to the “close to completion” stage. From application to approval, companies average approximately 45 days.
“I actually looked at it and was told repeatedly that you can’t look at a backward process like a forward process,” Ventura said. “And I disagreed with that. We quickly proved that we could do things more efficiently and seamlessly.”
