The president of Flyhomes says they are seeing more demand as home sellers increasingly want to buy a new place to live before selling the one they are in.

Dan Richards said what started as a company with real estate agents, loan officers, and boots on the ground in Washington, California, Texas, and Massachusetts has expanded to 39 states and Washington, DC. 

And although Flyhomes can cover about 94% of all purchase transactions today, the goal is to be nationwide.

“I would actually say that we’re already there, outside of a handful of states on the coasts, and we’re seeing demand, really, across the board,” Richards said. “We found that buy before you sell is becoming very ubiquitous, that demand is definitely prevalent in pretty much any market.”

Flyhomes has funded $2.2 billion in loans and works with over 30,000 in-network loan officers, according to the company’s website.

Richards said Flyhomes was founded ten years ago as a real estate brokerage in Seattle, Washington.

“Over the years, working kind of boots on the ground directly with home buyers, we developed a lot of unique financial products, guarantees, and things like that to help facilitate the real estate transaction. Over time, we developed mortgage capabilities, built up a mortgage company, and for the majority of our existence over the first eight years or so, we were all direct to consumer,” Richards said.

“One of the products that we pioneered was the concept of buy-before-you-sell bridge lending in order to cover the gap between selling and buying. That process evolved quite a bit over time. We used to buy properties on behalf of home buyers and then resell it to them. Then we evolved into actual mortgage lending. Now that’s exclusively all we do today. So we are a bridge lender, and we operate exclusively through a wholesale channel.”

Richards said that more than 40% of all real estate purchases have some kind of home sale contingency. By allowing home sellers to buy earlier on, it alleviates the stress on all parties in the transaction.

If sellers want to move forward and buy before they sell, this is how it works:

“Let’s say they submit an offer on a new home, they go under contract, and they want to move forward, we’ll put their departing residence under a backup contract. That backup contract gives them six months plus to go sell their home on the open market without needing to sell to us,” Richards said.

“Because we have that backup contract in place, though, the purchase lender who’s working with us can disregard all of the trailing debt on the purchase loan and the DTI calculation that they’re making for the underwriting. And we can also extract equity from their departing residence with our product that we call Instant Equity. It’s a super seamless home equity product, extremely easy and quick to originate. We don’t collect income, assets, employment, verification, anything like that. We rely heavily on the loan officer and the purchase transaction that they’re involved in.  We’re 100% complimentary to the purchase loan that they’re already doing.”

Richards said he understands the entire process can seem daunting for home sellers. That’s where loan officers experienced with these transactions are invaluable.

“It’s a very emotional process, for sure. And you know, we have seen over our lifetime and in my own personal background in this industry, so many people stop there. They get pre-approved, they start shopping, and they go to some open houses. They get excited. And then they realize, ‘Well, maybe I can’t sell my home as quickly as I want, or for as much as I hope,’ or ‘This is just a really complex process.’  And they pull out of the process. We’re hoping that we can really unlock this and provide a lot of certainty and provide a lot more freedom and more movement and more transparency in this process for our buyers,” Richards

The CEO of Longbridge Financial says when it comes to retirement, it is never too early to think about how you will use your home equity as you age.

"You really should be thinking about the home and the mortgage, your largest asset in retirement. You may decide that a reverse mortgage works. You may decide that HELOC or something else works. But whatever it is, ignoring that asset entirely probably doesn't make much financial sense," said Chris Mayer.

Longbridge Financial in Paramus, NJ, is a financial services company. They now offer HELOC for Seniors in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Washington. This program allows borrowers over the age of 62 to make interest-only payments, as long as they live in their home and make other required payments. The balance of the loan is paid back when they move out.

This is in addition to their Platinum Preserve and Platinum Peak products.

“What happens with Platinum Preserve is, it’s the first product in the market that allows you to take a portion of the home and say, 'I care about giving money to my kids, or I want to put money aside so if I have to sell my home, I may use it for assisted living. I may use it for health care expenses or other things. I want to give it to charity or to somebody else important in my life, if I don't have kids.' So, you can take a portion of your home, say 30% of your home, and say, ‘You know what, I'm going to reserve 30% of my home that I'm going to give to my kids no matter what happens with the reverse mortgage, as long as I pay my property tax and insurance and as long as I cooperate with the lender upon sale the home, I'm going to get 30% of the value of the sale price of that home to give to my kids, to have available to me if I sell the home and move into assisted living, whatever it is I want to do with that portion of the home that's going to be mine or my heirs, to decide what we want,'" said Mayer.

"And that is something that hasn't really been available before in this market. That you can preserve some of your home value for another use. And so we're very excited to launch Platinum Preserve because we recognize surveys from Fannie Mae and other sources suggest half to two-thirds of people who respond say what they really want to use with their home equity is actually to help the next generation, and this product allows them to do that.”

Mayer said leadership at Longbridge knows they are drawing outside of the traditional lines. But it's worth it to find innovative solutions for people in retirement.

"You have got to think out of the box. Look, we're in an industry where people bring a lot of ideas, a lot of preconceived ideas about reverse mortgages to the table. Some of them are right. Some of them are things that people hear or think they know that may not be accurate. And the thing about this product is it helps you better understand that at the end of the day, this is just a mortgage," said Mayer.

Mayer then explained the Platinum Peak program and how it differs from Platinum Preserve.

“They're not joined at the hip. They're two different products," said Mayer. "Platinum Peak is designed for people who want to get the most possible proceeds from a reverse mortgage. It allows borrowers to get up to 20 to 25% more proceeds than they would get from an FHA program. In fact, it's the highest proceeds available of any product on the market today that we're aware of. And so that product is really designed for people who want and need to access the most money they can out of their home. And this product is really about serving that demographic."

Mayer said there's $14 trillion of home equity for people who are 62 and older. There are about 12,000 people a day turning 65 years old. About 75% of them own a home, he said.

#retirementplanning #lending #mor

The president of regional model offices at a Florida-based real estate services provider is laser-focused on expanding into new markets.

"It’s safe to say, we’d like to be relevant in about a dozen markets where there is a significant amount of residential growth and single-family rental growth, where we have what I would consider density amongst other businesses that make it a right fit for us,” Julie Joseforsky said.

Fay Financial is based in Tampa and has offices in Chicago, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Texas. Their regional model has expanded to Orlando, St. Louis, and Atlanta this year.

Joseforsky recently sat down with The Mortgage Note’s Scott Kimbler to talk about what the company is up to and what makes finance personal to her.

She said Fay Financial is a specialty servicer and provider of real estate products and services.

"We really cover the entire real estate ecosystem. From a servicing perspective, we specialize in both performing and non-performing loans in terms of asset class capabilities and competencies. We have some very good skills in the non-QM and DSCR space. From an overall organizational perspective, we cover retail originations, wholesale originations, correspondent lending, MSR acquisition, title, property and casualty insurance, realty renovations, property maintenance, asset management, property management, and REO. We do REO, not just for ourselves, but for other lenders as well," Joseforsky said.

Joseforsky said The Fay Group CEO Ed Fay started the company in 2008 and was able to get contracts with servicers. The business has since expanded into a network of real estate, mortgage, and financial service businesses.

Joseforsky began working for the Fay Group four years ago but said she has known Fay since the days they both worked at Household International, which was sold to HSBC Bank in 2003.

When Joseforsky first onboarded with the organization, she helped to evolve several other businesses at Fay, which included their originations title as well as their property and casualty insurance business. She then helped to stand up a couple of other businesses for the organization.

Today, her title is President, Regional Model, Fay Financial.

Joseforsky attributes the company's success to experience and said they are well-positioned for some of the new market opportunities that will evolve over the course of the next several years in the industry.

“I think that we have deep roots in the industry and all facets of the industry, on the lending side, on the servicing side, on the real estate side. It gives us an opportunity to really be plugged in to all of what I would consider sort of the centers of influence across the industries. And, in doing so, I think that we have a very good understanding of where a lot of those trend lines are, and we have very deep roots and relationships within the industry," she said.

As a former two-sport collegiate athlete, Joseforsky said she is competitive, disciplined, team-oriented, and persevering. Those traits are essential to the role she has taken on with Fay Financial.

"I think I've pretty much hit just about every highlight that you can hit, and I feel that my sense of experiences, and maybe some of my more personal characteristics, make me right-suited for this particular role. It's been really enjoyable to see our progress and our growth. We utilize these regional expansion opportunities as an opportunity to do significant testing and learning so that we can export what I would consider best practices to our other regional locations, as well as throughout the organization," she said.

#realestate #financialservices #mortgagenews

The president of a wholesale provider of business purpose capital for mortgage brokers and their real estate investor clients says technology and talent will drive success for his company.

Ben Fertig at Constructive Capital in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, said in a recent interview with The Mortgage Note that the company grew 30% in each of the last two years on average.

Constructive Capital provides capital to a third-party origination network, mainly made up of mortgage brokers who work with real estate investors that use residential transition loans - also known as fix and flip loans - and DSCR related products.

When it comes to technology, modern risk management tools using artificial intelligence help to prevent fraud.

“If anything is off in terms of fonts or anything along those lines, it'll detect it. If any of the calculations are off, it'll detect it. It actually will track back the cookies on anything that's been changed relative to a PDF, or anything along those lines. So, I think that's definitely been a big development,” Fertig said.

Programs that pull in all the pictures historically from a property relative to its MLS listings are particularly helpful in their space, Fertig said. They also use a tool that aggregates data to create predictive analytics on whether or not a project is likely to get completed on schedule.

Another area where technology plays a key role is in project inspections as the market moves towards some virtual inspections.

“There's actually tools that can tell, just from a visual, if a project has got, for instance, click wood flooring versus real hardwood flooring. It’s pretty good stuff,” Fertig said.

Fertig has been talking about how home mortgage professionals should diversify their business for some time, saying there are opportunities for brokers to expand into residential transition loans and DSCR related products.

He said the reasons are multifaceted, but the first advantage of diversification is a different set of borrowers who are less rate sensitive than homebuyers.

“Secondly, the acquisition of the borrower is just more efficient because that borrower should be a recurring borrower. Most real estate investors do more than one loan or project,” Fertig said.

Most of Constructive Capital’s broker base is made up of industry professionals who generally service residential real estate investors exclusively. Fertig is hoping to develop a relationship with brokers who have historically focused on consumer products, conventional loans, and government loans.

The company has just under 1,300 approved brokers and about 500 of them are active, meaning they have sent the company a loan in the last six months.

Constructive Capital, which operates in 47 states, was named private lender of the year for 2024 at The National Private Lenders Conference.

#lending #realestateinvestment #mortgagenews

Serving a niche market on scale is the secret to success at Lake Homes Realty and Beach Homes Realty.

Lake Homes Realty is a tech-enabled, full-service real estate brokerage operating in 39 states. Beach Homes Realty has brokerages in 14 states. And the company’s newest addition, Mountain Homes Realty, covers 21 states and featured more than $100 billion in available mountain properties when it was announced in June.

“By using and aggregating data from across the country and limiting it to specific types of property, it makes a totally different experience trying to find a lake home if you’re looking in multiple states,” CEO Glenn Phillips said of the experience they offer buyers.

Sellers like using the company’s websites because they get a greater range of exposure, Phillips told Editor Kimberley Haas during an interview.

“If I’m selling a home at a lake in Tennessee, most agents would struggle to advertise that to buyers coming from California,” Phillips said.

Phillips said that experienced local agents are available to help buyers and sellers with their listings. These people are well-versed in the discretionary housing market.

They also understand the nuances that go into buying or selling a home in their particular market. For example, they can navigate permitting requirements for a dock or pier and have a sense of how busy the boat traffic is near different waterfront properties.

They can also answer all the questions buyers might have, as well as the things they will need to take into consideration.

“Are there access questions? Is this a public beach? Is it a private beach? Is it part of a condo association? Is it a club? If you’re buying just off the beach, which can be a better price point, how can I get to the beach? Or are your pets allowed on the beach?” Phillips said.

Phillips said there is no price point associated with the properties they help people buy and sell. Their websites feature vacant lots all the way up to multi-million dollar properties.

The market for these types of properties has changed in the last five years. Phillips said that during Covid, they had between seven and eight million people using their website. That drained inventory and increased prices.

Now, inventory is back as sellers come to grips with the fact that buyers are holding off on discretionary purchases and are not willing to overpay for these types of properties. Phillips said they are advising listing agents to price things appropriately so qualified buyers will move quickly and offer the asking price or better.

Phillips said that with all three websites, the company currently has about 350,000 properties listed for sale.

#waterfrontproperties #lakehomes #mortgagenews

Blending artificial intelligence with the power of human connection is the topic of a new book by trainer and coach Ron Vaimberg.

Vaimberg specializes in rapid and long-term origination growth, and “The Purchase Shift: Winning Agent Relationships with Authentic Connection & AI” was written for mortgage professionals to provide a clear path for maximizing reach while using the latest technology.

He recently sat down with The Mortgage Note to talk about the latest trends and offer advice for loan originators.

Vaimberg said the average originator is not using AI as much as they can to make their lives easier and more productive. There are programs that can connect to social media feeds, read other people’s posts, and create a dialogue, for example.

When it comes to making sure that interaction is authentic, Vaimberg advises originators to be careful because these tools are not something professionals can set and forget.

"I've been tiptoeing very cautiously into anything like this because I have found that AI across the board still can't speak like me. I've tried training it to speak like me," he said.

"I've made some progress.  But it's becoming easier and easier to detect what's been written by AI. So that's where the authentic communication comes in."

Vaimberg said customization is key, and an area where most originators can improve. He said the majority of AI users don’t take the time for customization because it requires additional effort. That’s a mistake.

"The less effort someone demonstrates that they're making to communicate, the less credibility they're going to have, and the more noise is going to be around. I'm seeing this noise grow exponentially," Vaimberg said.

Vaimberg said he never sacrifices quality for quantity and advises others to do the same if they want to stand out in today's market.

"I feel that the more we trust AI, the less we're going to be able to differentiate ourselves. And the less we can differentiate ourselves, the less of a competitive advantage we're going to have in an industry that is highly emotional," Vaimberg said. 

When it comes to ways AI can make an originator’s life easier behind the scenes, Vaimberg said using summaries from Zoom and other services is helpful.

"I encourage every loan officer or everybody, whenever you have a chance, if you're in a meeting, use a note taker and/or summary," he said.

Newer phones are also offering the ability to record and transcribe calls and that can be beneficial as well.

According to his website, Vaimberg has played a role in transforming the careers of over 200,000 originators throughout the United States, Canada, and Australia with his in-person and virtual success programs Purchase Mastery, Elite Originator, and the enhanced LOMastery.com platform.

#artificialintelligence #loanofficersuccess #mortgagenews

As retirees decide how to ensure their financial well-being for the long term, reverse mortgages are getting a second look from homeowners in their 60s and 70s.

With a reverse mortgage, people can convert their home’s equity into income while continuing to live there. That extra money can be used for renovations, to combat inflation, pay for health care, and maintain a good quality of life, according to Patrick Halonen.

Halonen was recently named head of credit policy, underwriting, and quality control at Longbridge Financial in Paramus, New Jersey. Longbridge, founded in 2012, is a national reverse mortgage lender that specializes in working with seniors.

Halonen recently sat down with The Mortgage Note’s Scott Kimbler to talk about stepping into his new role at the company.

Halonen has 25 years of expertise in the financial services industry. He worked at TD Bank, where he helped influence lending operations as the senior vice president and head of underwriting for retail mortgage, home equity, personal loans, and credit lines.

Previous roles at Citibank and US Bank equipped Halonen with leadership expertise, as he managed high-performing teams across various mortgage operations, including processing and closing.  

Halonen said a recent conversation with his uncle drove home the importance of financial options for seniors as they age.

“He had come to visit, and we were talking about retirement, just in general, he’s entered retirement. He’s in the early stages, and I’m still in my working years, and we were talking about how in your working years, you attempt to accumulate wealth and accumulate assets,” Halonen said.

“And then as you enter into retirement, it kind of flips on its head. You’re starting to then leverage the assets that you’ve accumulated over your lifetime, your retirement savings, the equity in your property, and other ways that you may have saved money or accumulated wealth to then pay for your retirement.”

He went on to explain the difference between a home equity loan and a reverse mortgage.

“I think home repairs are a good conversation around home equity versus reverse mortgage,” Halonen said. “If you’re okay with having a monthly payment, it could be a substantial monthly payment that you’re going to have to pay back on a regular basis, then a home equity loan might be a good option for you. But in many circumstances, I’d say the majority of circumstances, being able to tap the equity in your home without having to make a payment against that loan is going to be beneficial.”

Halonen said that since starting at Longbridge in March, he’s learned new ways the financial industry can help people through all of the stages of their lives, and he is excited to go to work every day to help them.

“I really do appreciate a person’s home being at the center of their life. I’ve had so many experiences where I’ve been able to help a person become a homeowner who didn’t think they could potentially become one. Now, I help a person stay in their home who felt like there was no option, that they were going to have to live a much different lifestyle than what they’ve been accustomed to throughout the majority of their life,” he said.    

In May, Longbridge introduced a new proprietary reverse mortgage feature that preserves equity for heirs.

Leaders at the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association in Washington, DC, estimate that home equity for people 62 and older is about $13.9 trillion.

#reversemortgage #lending #mortgagenews

The founder of Clarifire in St. Petersburg, Florida, says automation continues to modernize the mortgage servicing industry.

Jane Mason is the founder and CEO of the privately held, women-owned corporation that uses a Software-as-a-Service model to reduce manual processes and increase efficiencies.

In January, leaders at Clarifire announced that Towne Mortgage Company, a full-service mortgage lender and servicer based in Troy, Michigan, started using their workflow application.

Towne Mortgage Company services loans in 47 states.

Mason recently sat down with The Mortgage Note’s Scott Kimbler to talk about Clarifire and her vision for the company.

Mason was running a large law firm when she came up with the idea of using automation to help clients.

“I was thinking, and my epiphany was ‘a process is a process’. It doesn’t matter if it’s a legal process, a litigation process, a servicing process, right? Our larger customers at the law firm were large banks and servicers. What we tried to do with them is provide them automated access to legal services that they needed,” Mason said.

Mason began thinking about ways to better serve the financial services industry with workflow automation.

“When I got my first opportunity to start my own company and create Clarifire, I created an agnostic, innovative product that could handle any process.”

Clarifire went live in 2007 with Bank of America as its first official client. Truist Financial has been a client since 2009, Mason said.

“We’re a small company with under 100 employees and our clients are under 10, but some of them are extremely large and provide us with ongoing volumes of business,” she explained.

Mason said companies can convert to Clarifire software in a relatively short period of time. If they can provide data from their legacy systems, it usually takes 60 to 90 days.

Mason highlighted how technology can help servicers who have borrowers impacted by natural disasters.

Old school legacy systems are hard-coded, and users in call centers have to go through multiple steps to get borrowers the information they need in times of crisis, Mason said.

With Clarifire, users can ask questions and click on buttons to prompt the next question or response. If the borrower is impacted by the disaster, an automated form for forbearance relief can be issued.

“I think that is an example of how the automation works, and it’s smart. If you ask one question or they click one radio button, the technology is smart enough to go down a different path based on that click,” Mason said.

When asked what drives her daily, Mason said it is making a difference in the lives of clients and their customers.

“I believe in our team, and I believe in building good, long-lasting relationships, and I’m making a difference. It might be small in some people’s eyes, but I’m making a difference. And our customers can depend on us and know that we are here, we have integrity, and we are going to deliver and do what we say we’re going to do,” Mason said.

Looking ahead, Mason said they are continuing to invest in the product.

“It’s a continual evolution of modernization and implementation of different aspects of the latest technologies,” she said. “We’re trying to lead the industry into the future, and we’re going to continue to stay here because we enjoy what we do and we have passion about the successes that we’re getting.”

#automation #mortgageservicing #mortgagenews 

With the rising costs of homeowners insurance making headlines, servicers can step in and help people understand their coverage needs, according to the president of Cornerstone Servicing.

Toby Wells recently sat down with The Mortgage Note’s editor, Kimberley Haas, to discuss the topic. He said that wildfires in the West, hurricanes in the South, and hailstorms in the Midwest are causing more losses than in the past.

But it’s not just a high-risk area issue. Wells said homeowners’ insurance costs are going up throughout the country, with a few notable exceptions where prices have leveled off.

He said the best thing that a servicer can do is educate customers so they have an awareness of insurance, the risks that exist, and actions they can take.

#homeinsurance #mortgageservicing #mortgagenews

The CEO of BSI Financial Services in Irving, Texas, says the key to success in business is to treat every day as a fresh start.

BSI Financial Services is working to lead the evolution of mortgage servicing for originators, investors, and homeowners using a mortgage fintech platform. And CEO Gagan Sharma said there isn’t a dull moment.

“Sometimes that brings stress and challenge, but I think I enjoy the challenge, the intellectual challenge, the people challenge. Frankly, challenging myself to see, ‘Okay, what can I learn from yesterday? What did we do? What could we have done better?’ Individually, collectively, as a group, as a firm, as an industry, and apply that,” Sharma said.

Sharma described the mentality as one similar to a professional athlete.

“I approach business almost with that approach that, ‘Hey, I’m an athlete. Maybe I played well yesterday, maybe I didn’t. But either way, what am I going to do today?’ Even if I won the game yesterday, it doesn’t matter because tomorrow is a new game. That is the approach, that’s what gets me going,” Sharma said.

Sharma recently sat down with The Mortgage Note’s Scott Kimbler to talk about BSI Financial Services and his vision for the company. He started by talking about how he came to be involved with the company.

“BSI was a company and a business plan that I was working on when I was doing my MBA at Wharton. This was my second entrepreneurial venture. I founded my first company in the late 90s. Built it, sold it. I actually founded that company in my first year of business school. I dropped out of school to build and run that business, and then I sold it. Then I went back to business school to finish my MBA,” Sharma said.

“In my first company, half my business was working with mortgage companies. So, when I was looking to get back on the entrepreneurial path, mortgage was the industry that I felt was interesting. I’ve always had an interest in finance. BSI, as we started it, was a business plan to acquire and get into the mortgage servicing business. That was in late 2005, so almost 20 years ago.”

Today, BSI Financial is one of the fastest-growing mortgage servicers across the industry and currently services nearly $50 billion in mortgages. 

Sharma has a vision of where he sees the company going.

“We spend a lot of time thinking about it. What is our vision? What’s our purpose, almost, right? After a lot of thought, the way we would define it is we’re really passionate about homeownership, but also, our role is in what we call fostering sustainable homeownership. We want homeownership where it is sustainable, whether that’s as a servicer or a lender. We want to make sure that the borrower, the consumer, who is the customer who’s in the home, we can make it into a sustainable home ownership experience for them,” Sharma said.

To do that, company leaders ask how they can foster this through their different businesses and customer experiences.

“Today, we may be touching a quarter million families. Our goal is over the coming years, we believe we have an opportunity to significantly scale that up. So, we want to double our business and more because we think that with our combination of different businesses, we can provide a great value-added solution for all our customers. Whether they be our borrowers or whether they be a lender or other clients,” Sharma said.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, Sharma said interest rates will play a big factor in what happens in the housing market.

“They went to seven and higher, but seem to be coming down a reasonable bit. I would say that interest rates are probably going to be one of the biggest drivers of what happens to housing,” Sharma said.   

#technology #financialservices #mortgagenews