Why credit unions are missing the boat on reverse mortgage demand

Credit unions have significant room to expand their reverse mortgage offerings as their memberships age, according to panelists who presented this week at the American Credit Union Mortgage Association (ACUMA)’s annual Make Your Mark conference in Las Vegas. Ron Kamler, president and CEO of Alliance Reverse Mortgage, and Brandon Bartholomew, mortgage sales manager at Mountain America Credit Union, discussed the challenges and opportunities for credit unions who serve older homeowners. At the start of the presentation, Kamler noted that of the nearly 36,000 reverse mortgages originated nationwide over the past 12 months, credit unions accounted for just 81 of them. He said that figure is also small compared with the roughly 55 million credit union members who are age-eligible for a reverse mortgage. One root of the problem is that many borrowers are unsure of where to begin. Bartholomew said Mountain America began offering reverse mortgages after members started coming to the credit union with outside quotes and questions about the products. “They trusted the credit union to help them and advise them as what to do, so that’s one of the reasons we started getting into reverse mortgag...