Countrywide has had to make a lot of changes to their wholesale operations in the last six months and it looks like the heat from the subprime mess has affected their reverse mortgage operations as well.  Late on Thursday Countrywide announced that they would be modifying the way in which business partners obtain reverse mortgages.  The announcement comes with two big changes:

1. Countrywide will no longer be paying any back end premiums on HECM or Simple Equity products.
2. Countrywide is adjusting their sales coverage model.  The new model will be a centralized team of reverse mortgage specialists who will work with their nationwide “forward” account executives to handle both service and support for your reverse mortgage production. 

I’m not totally sold on the idea that a “forward” account executive can handle reverse mortgage business along with their normal business.  I know that Wells Fargo is operating their reverse mortgage business the same way with current wholesale clients, but I haven’t heard much about anyone using Wells for their reverse mortgage production. 

I wish everyone who was laid off best wishes in their next move and I’m sure everyone will land on their feet.

Technorati tags: Reverse Mortgage, Reverse Mortgage News, Countrywide, HECM, Simple Equity, Wells Fargo