“Making the transition from our own technology to working with Mortgage Cadence will allow us to focus on our business processes and strategies,” said Mark Sohl, Chief Operating Officer from Generation Mortgage, in a statement. “The ability to leverage Mortgage Cadence will enable us to focus our time and energy on continuing to provide the superior customer service in which we pride ourselves.”

By upgrading to this product suite, top-ten reverse mortgage lender Generation now has “complete and comprehensive system integration” that promises “greater efficiency and scalability in multiple business channels under the umbrella of a single solution,” according to Mortgage Cadence.

Mortgage Cadence touts its technology as enabling lenders to streamline processes and refocus attention on growing their business and increasing overall profitability.

Written by Alyssa Gerace

The advanced rules engine is equipped to “easily manage NRMLA guidelines, lender guidelines and any future HUD guidelines by offering lenders a dashboard to continually modify programs as changes are made.”

The Mortgage Cadence Symphony loan origination solution will also allow lenders who sell to multiple investors to support multiple guidelines.

The FHA’s HECM Program Update, issued Oct. 5, 2011, included an update indicating that the Department of Housing and Urban Development does not prohibit additional financial capacity and credit assessment tests on HECM applicants. Then, on Oct. 27, the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association released guidance on limited underwriting for property charges, meant to assess a loan applicant’s capacity and willingness to pay property charges.

Since then, many lenders have adopted these guidelines or in the process of doing so, while some have created their own financial assessments to conduct on prospective reverse mortgage borrowers.

As the industry begins to implement these assessment, it’s important that lenders make the necessary adjustments to their underwriting processes to account for the changes, says Mortgage Cadence.

“In order to stand the test of time, reverse lenders must be flexible to meet changing market conditions,” John Levonick, chief legal and compliance officer for Mortgage Cadence said in a statement, adding that Mortgage Cadence “continuously stays ahead of industry regulations to offer our clients the guidance they need to sustain their business.”

Written by Alyssa Gerace

The limited underwriting is based in part on a borrower’s principal limit utilization, or PLU—the amount of principal limit that a borrower uses to pay off liens. The higher the lien payoff is, the less money the borrower will have available to cover expenses and taxes and insurance.

Reverse mortgage software provider ReverseVision now allows users to access a report  showing their companies’ historic PLU over the past year, which should help in the decision-making process when it comes to underwriting for tax and insurance.

NRMLA members are encouraged, but are not required, to conduct the limited underwriting of property charges, NRMLA’s legal counsel told members on Monday.

A sample PLU report for ReverseVision users (see below) shows the percentage of loans historically which have surpassed a certain level of principal limit use.

In the sample diagram, about 13% of the loans have total liens to be paid off at closing that are higher than 85% of the principal limit. When limiting it just on the First Lien PLU (First Lien / Principal Limit), then about 10% of the loans have a first lien that is higher than 85% of the principal limit.

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

The company recently rolled out several new features which have been in the pipeline for some time.

The most recent is “push” technology that allows leads to go directly into a reverse mortgage Customer Relation Management system (RmCRM), which from there can be “pushed” again into many major loan origination systems, such as MetLife’s Tango.

This bypasses the need for manual data entry and streamlines the whole process of creating quotes for prospective reverse mortgage borrowers, says Eric Hiatt, President and CEO of Reverse Fortunes.

And, by the end of next year’s first quarter, Hiatt continues, Reverse Fortunes expects to be able to push leads from his company’s RmCRM to every loan origination system in the country.

Integrating the RmCRM email and calendar system with Outlook’s email and calendar was another step toward convenience. Syncing the two programs will save a lot of time, money, and energy for companies who use them both, says Hiatt.

Reverse Fortunes now also features MailMerge through its RmCRM, which enables users to generate a variety of customer preset letters using their information. Instead of going through the process of MailMerge through Microsoft Word, Hiatt says, the integration allows users to create letters for contacts within RmCRM, adding that it’s “much simpler and more convenient.”

These features are geared toward those who are already firmly established in the industry, but Hiatt says his company also saw a need for originators seeking “to get up to that next level, where can they go to someone to help them build a market plan, and be coached in how to be successful in the reverse mortgage business.”

With that in mind, Reverse Fortunes introduced the Reverse Mortgage Coach, a title which right now belongs exclusively to Sue Haviland, a reverse mortgage consultant and founder of Reverse Mortgage Success; Hiatt says they’ll probably bring on more coaches in the future.

Although coaching is very common in the forward industry, it hasn’t really caught on yet in the reverse world, says Hiatt. However, he sees it as a need, and thinks people haven’t necessarily realized it yet.

“We’ve set up a three-month program, and basically in that three months, it’s going to be different for every single person that wants to do the coaching,” he explained. “It depends on what their level is. There are a lot of good originators who need help with different aspects…It’s customized to the individual who wants to bring his business to the next level.”

Earlier in the year, Reverse Fortunes launched Lead Central as a way to streamline the reverse mortgage lead purchasing process for originators, which Hiatt says has reached their goals and increased site traffic.

Written by Alyssa Gerace

It’s the first time more than 50% of all adults said they’re sites like Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace, and a dramatic increase from the first survey in 2005, which showed that just 8% of internet users or 5% of all adults said they used them.  While 61% of users over the age of 30 reported they use social networking site on a typical day, it remained relatively flat over the last year.

Usage by those 65 and older grew more than any other group, with 33% of the cohort saying they use the sites, up from 26% last year.

“The graying of social networking sites continues, but the oldest users are still far less likely to be making regular use of these tools,” said Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist and co-author of the report. “While seniors are testing the waters, many Baby Boomers are beginning to make a trip to the social media pool part of their daily routine.”

In the past two years, social networking site use among internet users age 65 and older has grown 150%, from 13% in April 2009 to 33% in May 2011. Similarly, during this same time period use by 50-64 year-old internet users doubled—from 25% to 51%.

View the report.

When a borrower fails to pay his or her taxes and insurance, that person will be placed into default status, at which point Celink’s servicing platform, ReverServ, auto-assigns a company associate. The Celink associate will serve as the exclusive point of contact for the borrower until the default is resolved through the remediation or foreclosure process.

“We have always prided ourselves on providing our clients with exceptional service to their borrowers,” said Ryan LaRose COO, “and this is one more example of Celink being proactive with borrowers on a very critical issue.”

Working with a single person through the process eliminates the need for borrowers to re-explain their situations during each communication with the subservicer, Celink says. It also provides comfort that they have a “dedicated” person through the process.

This single point of contact is only assigned to a select number of accounts so Celink can provide the most personalized service possible to the borrower.

Any written communication to borrowers in default status will also contain their single contact’s name, and they will have access to a default-only toll-free number by which they can easily be in touch with their contact person.

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

The company quietly added its first client in May and is looking for new customers to add to its roster.

“We’re looking to add more people and are targeting relationships that we’ve had in past,” said Kimberly Browne, Executive Director at UBS Securities Co. The company is looking for lenders with $10 million in tangible net worth, but it’s willing to consider others if they have extensive experience.

Prior to the subprime crisis, UBS was an active investor in HECM product. As of right now, it isn’t looking to get back into purchasing whole loans, and it sees that as an advantage over most of the competition. Correspondent lenders like MetLife and Sun West offer warehouse lines to customers, but often require that the loans be delivered to their own channels.

ReverseVision is the first company to built its platform to interface and submit loans directly to UBS.

“We are just a small wheel in the industry, but by adding UBS as a warehouse lender to our list of interfaces we do what we always have done best, bring great companies together,” said Thomas Martignoni, CEO of ReverseVision in an email to RMD.

Overall, reverse mortgages are a small part of UBS’s warehouse business, with most coming from “forward” government programs, USDA, and non-conforming jumbo products. Browne told RMD it can help customers expand their relationships with other investors like REITs that are looking for non-conforming products. However, don’t expect proprietary reverse mortgage products in the near future, says Browne.

“[Jumbo reverse mortgages] are pretty far away, not this year or early next,” she said.

The postponement is another in a series of delays that have taken place in the development of the technology, which was initially scheduled to launch in November as a second generation to the antiquated Insurance Accounting Collection Systems (IACS), which was developed in 1989 and has been used since by servicers.

In a follow up email from the Federal Housing Administration’s Gerald Kifer, director of its Home Valuation Policy Division, FHA provided an update on the HERMIT project and an explanation of why the training had been canceled.

Kifer cited numerous changes and ongoing revisions to the HERMIT system during its development as reasons for the delay. “It would have been premature to train servicers on a system that is still being developed and tested,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, this became most evident at the last moment when we became involved in detailed User Acceptance Testing.”

The project will be reorganized under a new timeline, according to the email, pending new development and testing. FHA plans to schedule conference calls and contacts and acknowledged the need for more lead time and information with regard to upgrades and planning.

Development of the HERMIT system falls under a $32 million contract awarded in by HUD in 2009. A new project manager was assigned to the development in January, at which time the completion date for the project was still unknown.

Written by Elizabeth Ecker