A great article from the Wall Street Journal that features Clearwater, FL based LoanWell Financial Corp and how they’ve made the transition from a traditional “forward” lender, to a reverse mortgage company that closed 52 reverse loans last month. 

As we all know success in the reverse mortgage business doesn’t always come quickly.  When LWFC made the switch to reverse mortgages in January of 2007, the company closed 3 reverse mortgages the month following the change.  The company needed to get production up quickly because the company had eaten through $1 million in seed money and the last thing any lender wanted to lend to was a mortgage company in Florida. Faced with a tough decision, Michael Banner, President and CEO of LWFC believed in his companies strategy to focus to reverse mortgages and they made it work…. anyone in our business will appreciate this story.  My favorite quote

“We put it all on the line, it was the right thing at the right time.”

Michael Banner – President & CEO of LoanWell Financial Corp.

Product Shift Keeps Mortgage Firm Afloat (WSJ)