New Financial Planning Software Evolves to Meet Reverse Mortgage Market

June 28th, 2012 | by Elizabeth Ecker Published in News, Retirement, Reverse Mortgage | 1 Comment

With the recent interest gained by financial planning professionals in the use of reverse mortgages as a retirement planning tool, many in the industry have worked to educate financial planners of the benefits they may be able to offer their clients.

But some of that work may already be done, as a result of being built in to a well-known financial planning software tool they use in their analysis and advice.

As of three years ago, financial services software giant Fiserv began including a reverse mortgage calculation capability in its popular AdvisorVision software, which currently comprises about 500,000 retirement plans. The change, the company says, was brought to address the retirement income needs of baby boomers, now “rapidly” entering retirement. Today, that software is also incorporating a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage Saver calculation, again based on consumer demand and retirement planning. And the company is looking into other ways to include reverse mortgages in its programs as well.

“We work closely with our clients and partners in the financial services industry to determine needs of investors and their goals and priorities,” Jeremy Schlarb, business solutions analyst for the company told RMD. “Fiserv continually enhances our solutions to help provide the wealth management firms we serve with innovative solutions that will help them, and their investors, thrive. More recently, the demand for reverse mortgage calculations and illustrations has been rising, so we’re exploring enhancements in our next release of AdvisorVision.”

Similar to other reverse mortgage calculators, the program seeks the home value, expected growth rate, loan rate, borrower age and other information to determine how a reverse mortgage will impact the overall retirement plan. Most recently, the software’s HECM Saver capability was included in direct response to the product offering making its entry into the market, Schlarb says, setting it apart from other types of financial planning software.

The company will continue to track reverse mortgage developments and shape its products accordingly, with the expectation that many more financial planners will look to reverse mortgages as a retirement tool.

“In my research, I’ve come across several publications that emphasize the increased popularity of reverse mortgages for house-rich homeowners (62 and older seeking additional retirement income),” Schlarb says. “Recent research also indicates that housing price appreciation will have an effect on the demand for reverse mortgages as well.”

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

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The_Cynic

Since the current counseling protocol lacks any requirement or recommendation to consider the work of any financial planner or advisor, it seems that HUD as well as counseling execs have reached the very questionable conclusion that the work of those professionals should be entirely disregarded and any advice provided by the counselor should be based solely on the results of the FIT report. While individual counselors may cry foul, the facts are, counselors who make any recommendations based on the work or conclusions of others has not followed HUD counseling protocol.

While there is little fault to find in the learning portion of the counseling session, the financial assessment portion is an entirely different matter. Counseling should use the work of a financial advisor in determining if a counselee should obtain a HECM but only after vigorously determining if a financial advisor is competent and if the advisor has ANY financial stake in the transaction such as using proceeds to buy some product for which the advisor will receive compensation or if a financial advisor will simply obtain higher compensation as a result of an increase in a management fee for managing the assets of the counselee. However, it is sad that under the current protocol the work of a financial advisor is disregarded despite how much more they generally know about the counselee, their financial, marital, living, and general medical situation than the counselor. While counseling execs might counter that doing that much work is more than going through FIT and BCU combined exposes how little real advice a counselor now provides on a transaction which encumbers the largest single tangible asset most seniors own.

Advising a house rich, cash poor senior is generally much easier than advising an asset affluent senior no matter what the net estate of that senior maybe. The counseling protocol generally ignores that more affluent seniors might even be interested in HECMs. With the introduction of the Saver and now with the general research results of respected financial planners pointing to HECMs, particularly Savers, as a means to extend cash flow further into retirement on a reasonable economic cost basis should compel HUD to revisit the grossly outdated HECM counseling financial assessment portion.

Counseling seems ill prepared to be a valuable service to the more affluent. HUD and counseling must come together and determine how it will handle an influx of affluent seniors now and hopefully much more in future years.

The financial assessment portion of counseling protocol was horribly outdated when it was introduced and has not been approved despite promises from the creator of FIT. The clear need is for FIT to go. BCU on the other hand needs to be upgraded to consider the needs of all seniors and be required to be taken before the financial assessment of counseling UNLESS the senior requests that the counselor helps the senior through it. The only exception should be for the senior supplying the counselor with the financial information needed for the counselor to advise the senior about their need to obtain a HECM as supplied by a verified competent and independent financial planner.