The Home Equity Conversion Mortgage counselor exam administered under the Department of Housing and Urban Development will change, with a new exam rolling out on Monday, November 28. The exam is required to obtain and retain a place on the HUD HECM Counselor Roster, and has not been revised since May 2009. The new revision [...]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has informed reverse mortgage housing counselors that lenders may begin to implement a new assessment as part of loan underwriting that will help ensure borrowers can meet the tax and insurance obligations associated with their loans. The notification comes following the release of new recommended underwriting guidance set [...]

When it comes to who’s responsible for educating prospective reverse mortgage borrowers, it seems everyone is pointing fingers—at themselves. Lenders and counselors alike assume responsibility for making sure consumers know about the reverse product, especially following a court case in January of 2010 where a judge voided a reverse mortgage and held the lender ultimately responsible for [...]

In prepared testimony delivered by Acting Federal Housing Administration Commissioner Carol Galante, Galante urged a House Financial Services subcommittee to consider the importance of housing counseling and funding restoration—including reverse mortgage counseling—in the context of the greater housing crisis. “Housing counselors are a crucial source of assistance for distressed homeowners,” Galante stated in testimony before the [...]

Many housing counseling agencies saw their government funding dry up on Oct. 1, 2011, the same day that QuickCert, a non-profit agency devoted solely to reverse mortgage pre-application counseling, opened its doors, boasting quick “turn times” compared to other agencies with two to three-week-long waiting lists. Before transitioning into a Department of Housing and Urban [...]

A government program to help homeowners facing foreclosure reached its cutoff date this week, falling short of its goals by roughly $500 million. With $500 million back on the table, one has to wonder why the department of Housing and Urban Development can’t find a mere fraction of that amount to restore housing counseling funding. [...]