RMD has learned that VirtualBank Seniors Lending Group is getting back into the reverse mortgage business after it was shut down in late 2007.  Al Rodriguez is heading up the business as President and Dennis Loxton will be the National Sales Manager for wholesale.

Virtual Bank is accepting new broker applications effective immediately and plans to formally open for business nationwide in early March.

Prior to shutting down, Virtual Bank offered a creative suite of products like the Mega Life, Life Plan, and Prime Life which were designed for borrowers who didn’t quite fit into the HECM program or the jumbo products in the marketplace.

While it’s doubtful the company will be offering the same type of products as before, we’re being told Virtual Bank is in the process of getting approved as a Ginnie Mae issuer.  However, its no secret that Ginnie Mae has a backlog of applications from reverse mortgage lenders and all we’ve been told is “We’re working through them as fast as we can”.

Assuming Virtual Bank is able to get approved to issue HMBS, they will have plenty of competition as execution on the secondary market continues to improve.  Last week SunWest and Reverseit pricing improved drastically and began paying over 2% in YSP to correspondents for fixed rate HECMs.