The Biggest Opportunities for Reverse Mortgages in 2025

While 2024 was full of challenges for the mortgage industry at large – both forward and backward – a new year brings a new mindset. Some challenges remain, the most important of which is mortgage rates. Education and distribution can probably also be improved. But there are also new opportunities for the industry in 2025, and the eternally optimistic reverse mortgage industry is more than ready to embrace them.

That was the general tenor of conversations with industry professionals at multiple companies, who shared their vision for the year ahead HousingWire‘s Reverse Mortgage Daily (RMD).

Reach more progressive mortgage players

Over the past few years, there have been renewed efforts on the part of reverse mortgage companies to better align with their counterparts in the traditional mortgage world. As interest rates began to rise, more forward-thinking companies seemed to embrace the potential of adding reverse mortgages to their overarching product lines, and the reverse mortgage industry continues to see this as a solid opportunity in the new year.

“I think the opportunity, and what we started in 2023 and certainly continued in 2024, is this distribution problem,” said Jim Cory, director of reverse mortgages at Guild Mortgage who was also recently elected co-chairman of the National Association of Reverse Mortgage Lenders (NRMLA).

“For example, my role at NRMLA is to work on various outreach to other organizations to build distribution,” he added. “I see that as a big priority in 2025, as a potential ‘year of collaboration’, if you want to call it that. I see more collaboration with different business units, both for the wider industry and also within Guild.”

Some of that was echoed by Steve Irwin, president of NRMLA, in a recent interview with RMD.

“There are a lot of actions and meetings taking place with me and the co-chairs, Mike Kent and Jim Cory, about expanding our reach into adjacent industries and relevant academic entities,” Irwin said. “Such as think tanks and other associations related to the aging issue, but also independent mortgage bankers, who come into contact with them and get involved in their events, but also in broker events and their educational content.”

Spreading the message remains a priority and NRMLA will continue to lead the way, Irwin said.

“[We want to let them know] how a reverse mortgage works, and how adding reverse mortgages to a product portfolio benefits them and senior homeowners in general.”

Lisa Moriello, national retail reverse sales manager at loanDepotsaid this outreach was a bright spot in 2024 and fully expected both industry-wide and company-specific efforts to continue in the new year.

“The good news for 2024 for us was that many term loan officers realized that reverse mortgages are a great play. [to add to] their company, and many people took the initiative to get certified,” she said. “And so we’re working hard to educate them, help them build a business, get them into their communities so we can introduce this piece to their markets.”

Digital processes and leaving the ‘dark ages’

In a statement to RMD says Finance of America (FOA) President Kristen Sieffert spoke about the priorities the company is pursuing in the new year, arising from the opportunities identified.

“As we look ahead to 2025, our primary focus is on advancing digital innovation to deliver seamless experiences to our customers and modernizing our marketing strategy to overcome previous adoption barriers within our industry,” she said. “We believe that focusing on these two areas is critical in our mission to create home equity as a mainstream retirement solution for retirees.”

Technology was also seen as a priority by Peter Sciandra, EVP of reverse lending secondary marketing at Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp.

“We’re looking at ways to reduce costs for the borrower because we were always thought to have quite high initial costs,” he said. “So we want to try to address that a bit in the process itself. There may be ways to improve that, whether it’s changes in guidelines or changes in technology. We start to focus on these things. And I find that very exciting.”

Sciandra said the industry still has a long way to go when it comes to bringing the industry’s technology up to modern standards, but the opportunity to do so is being embraced.

“Unfortunately, in many ways we are still in the dark ages as far as technology is concerned,” he said. “So we’re looking at some things and working with some software vendors to maybe make some changes to the way things are done.”