Closing Services for Reverse Mortgage Businesses, with Angel Booth of Premier Reverse Closings

0:00 Well, at the end of the day, you can be the at the end of the day, you can be the best originator in the world, the best loan, the best rates, the best price, the fees, but if it doesn't close, nothing happens. We're in real estate, and at the end of the day, you got to close, get the paper, get the recording done, and that includes closing services, what we think of in Southern California, separate title and escrow. Nationally, they refer to it more as closing services and often combined. Really excited to have a company that really focuses on and addresses the unique needs of the reverse mortgage industry. Angel Booth of Premier Reverse Closings. Angel, thank you so much for joining us today.

0:34 Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the invite. And so, what do you think are the unique needs of a reverse mortgage originator or company that you service with your national platform?

0:48 Definitely. Knowing it's like almost like read the room. You're dealing with a demographic of a population that is it's changing but they are very or have been I should say very traditional. So when you're talking about knowing what your cuz a loan officer you're a salesperson you need to know your audience. You need to know what you're selling you need to know where they're at. And a lot of them have pride. A lot of them have this sense of guilt or that they're doing something wrong by you know utilizing this product and it's the farthest thing from it. And a lot of these people are vulnerable and so being able to be, you know, at the most respectable and forthcoming and honest as possible because these people trust you. And I think some sales people get into the business of sales and they're just like, "Oh, I'm a good salesperson." And they just want to make the sale and make the commission and they don't realize like you can set these people in this program back so far if you're not doing your due diligence with this job. So just read the room, know your audience, and make sure that what you are doing is for the right reasons for our demographic of people that we work with.

1:58 Now you as a company deal with I looked at the coverage map. We say 40 states or so, but basically a national bandwidth. We're national.

2:07 So, are you doing 46 states? So, are you dealing with companies that individually are in all those? Do you have individual originators who have multiple states and need you from time to time? How what's your client look like? Referral client.

2:17 So, we're very colorful. So, we definitely work with the larger lenders, you know, the well, not anymore, the AAGs of the world, FAR or FOA, they like to be, Finance of America, you know, mutuals, the Liberties or PHHs of the world. But then we deal with a lot of brokers. We've dealt with a lot of brokers and help them come through the ranks of when they're just, you know, a broker who's using an investor and a lender, but now maybe they're a principal agent broker and they're working their way up to being a lender. So, we work with smaller brokers, large PA lenders, investors, all of the above. So it doesn't necessarily always mean that maybe a person is licensed in Kentucky, but they're right there in, you know, California. They just have a license in a set state or sometimes maybe there's a broker that has just their license in California but they work for a company where they can sit under that company's umbrella that might be licensed in several other states as well. It just really depends on whatever the business model is for each individual client.

3:16 And when an individual broker works with a company like yours that works nationally, is it one contact point for the ordering or do they have to they get assigned each time maybe different states or how does it what's the actual process look like? The assign for ordering is always going to be the same. We have an open order department. So, you know, anyone who wants to work with us, whether they're at the smaller level, an order or two every couple months or, you know, multiple orders a day, they're going to always go through our open order department. That is our what we would like to happen. But we have clients that we work with forever who just are very personal and they want to email the team that they're working with that they know they're working with because that's just what they want to do. And the teams will then filter it to our open order department. But we try to keep everything as fluid as possible. Everything is streamlined. That's what helps us stay on a national level and do our job great is by having these really streamlined processes of how we flow. And it all starts with that open order. We will then filter it to whichever team the account is assigned to knowing who their escrow officer is. And we do try to filter that through you know our national ability. We have some people who have a lot of East Coast clients. So they may have some people who start a little earlier in the day to accommodate that time difference and then you know people who work a little bit later for the same reason just to be available after hours too.

4:34 What are some of the unique problems that you just because obviously you also do non-reverse mortgages but talk about some of the unique or do you just do reverse mortgages? You do mortgages nationally.

4:46 We do actually our we are we are a very niche company. We do reverse mortgage. That is our primary focus. We do some conventional refies. We've done VA. We'll do purchases, but we typically have over time and learning the Realtor® market and what that looks like in other states. California

5:07 Is very different. They're very they want to keep that in-house local. And so for the forward side, whether it's a sale, refi, we typically don't do a lot of those. I would say our business model is probably like 97% reverse mortgage.

5:25 Wow. Wow. Absolutely. Yeah. So that said, obviously you learn how to do something well. What and one of the things I've learned in business is people who do a lot of something have the chance to do it well. Meaning, if you only do a few, it's hard to be consistently high quality. And in manufacturing when you do you know a million parts you learn how to get them right or else you can have a lot of rejects or cost problems. So in your case what do you think are some of the unique problems in reverse mortgages that you guys have worked out or address or offer to avoid for people who use you?

5:57 What I'll say is counterintuitive to why we don't like to do the conventional side of business. Because we don't do it all the time. Maybe there's a form or something that has changed or that is different that we'll know through the process, but we don't want to muddle through something. And so that's our, you know, slogan or sales pitch to people who do use a national company because they're national, but they may not know reverse. So

6:21 Because we're national, we have to know what's going on in every state, every county all the time. And a lot of these companies that will get an order and it's a reverse like, "Oh yeah, we can do it." And then at the ninth hour, this thing came up or that thing came up or oh, we didn't know that was a requirement for the underwriter. And so now the broker is looking, you know, not oop, excuse me, I didn't turn my ring off. The broker is not looking as reputable as they did maybe when they first brought that order in. The borrower is now, you know, feeling some kind of a way. So we've basically ironed out and understand HUD's guidelines and needs, the state guidelines and needs. And we know what the brokers need to do as well on a national level. So, there's not many things that come up that we're not aware of. A lot of times we do like a lot of pre-flight. So, we encourage people if you're new to a state, if you're not used to processing or you don't understand what's going on, reach out to us first before you open that order. We offer that a lot where yes, it does take man-hours away from us because we're working on scenarios that don't even exist for us yet, but we'd rather you go through all those hoops first than to open the order. And now your order's been sitting for, you know, 6 months to get closed because you could have been dealing with all of this up front on the back end before you even started an application. And I think a lot of other companies that aren't not necessarily on a national level, but that don't specifically do reverse mortgages run into that issue. And that's why we don't like to do for instance. They if you're not on that contract, they're going to want that loan to stay where it's at and you're going to have to really convince them that you know what they're doing. You know what you're doing before that order is going to change. And we don't get in the way of that. You know, we're like, "Yeah, we can absolutely do it, but we're not going to spend days and weeks trying to convince someone that we know how to do our jobs. If you have someone that you're more comfortable with, have at it. We're totally fine with that.

8:13 There's enough business for everyone." So, there's not anything specific I think that we do better. I think that we're just very consistent and we've been doing this gosh. Specifically PRC, we've been doing this for 17 years this year. But a lot of us collectively have worked with each other over 25 years. You know, just in different capacities under different company names, but still working together. So, we know what we're doing in the reverse world for sure.

8:38 Now, you work with some good companies and some bad ones. So, spill the tea. What are the best practice? What are the biggest mistakes you see the people who struggle make? I think where people struggle the most and I try to play devil's advocate sometimes I feel like okay maybe this person really didn't understand or know this rule or this circumstance was not okay. Like one of the biggest things is like the counseling that has to be done, you know, California specifically with the cooling off period. And a lot of people try to push a hard line and push a boundary and you know start the process before it's supposed to happen. And really at the end of the day, it's really not that big of a deal. Like I don't know on the lending side why in their minds it matters so much for something to be opened when you still have a process to wait for. You got to wait for appraisal. You got to wait for a lot of other things. Opening title isn't a big deal. And it's such a small thing. It's totally not a big deal. We deal with it, you know, enough. I won't say a ton, but I think for the most part, people who work with us know we know what we're doing and so they don't try certain things. I think we're very conservative. I'll say that as far as our business practice. So I think and people know that. So sometimes if someone is, I'm not going to say doing something shady or they're just maybe trying to really push alone that might be colorful, they're probably not going to come to us with that order because they know that we're going to have our little magnifying glass out and we're going to be looking like, "Wait a minute, why is that there?" And we're going to question that because at the end of the day, we're protecting the lender, we're protecting the broker, we're protecting the borrower, and they know that. So, we don't really have too many clients that try too many things. I will say that sometimes we do have to get creative and go back to our underwriters back and forth quite a bit to make something work. You know, we want to do what's best for the benefit of the borrower within reason and what's legal. And sometimes we do have to challenge a state statute or really look at an underwriting requirement to say, okay, are we adhering to or are we missing something why we can't make this loan work? And we do that quite a

10:41 Bit. So I can't I can't say I have anything necessarily bad to say or any tea on Oh, come on. I know you got something there. You're smiling.

10:50 Give us They'll pull it. They'll pull it. We'll What I will say is this. I'll say we'll lose some business sometimes because someone may be trying to do something that they probably shouldn't do that another title company might bat an eye at and just, you know, look away.

11:06 So, that happens. You know, it's not a ton, but it happens. It happens. And they go out of business six months later. So, good luck with that. Now, on the positive side,

11:14 Yep. You see really successful people and ones a struggle. What are some of the patterns or best practices you see of the people who are most successful?

11:23 Oh, definitely being on top of the information that they provide. We've got like a little I'm going to be sending you this what we call our PRC starter pack and there is this little basically help us help you what we call it our checklist that we like people to provide when they send an order. They're not going to always have these things. We know that. But help us help you. The more information that you have is going to help us start working on that loan as soon as we get the order. Not once title comes in and now we're nickel-and-diming you asking you for something, you know, every couple days once we discover something. We've got a lot of good brokers and lenders who are very streamlined. So, they come through with an open order with a full-on packet ready to go. Borrowers authorization, mortgage statements, trusts, power of attorneys up front for review, backstories as far as, you know, what's going on, title with the scenario, and we might have already done the pre-flight and we'd have the notes from that. So, I would say the successful partners that we work with, they're very organized. They stay on top of things and they communicate very well. I would say the ones that don't do the best in that area or a little bit more scattered, a little bit more at the ninth hour bringing forth information that could have been avoided if we knew up front. And so, as much as we try to encourage that, you're going to still have your couple that fall through the cracks that just want to do it their way. We let them do what they do. And when they get upset, we don't say we told you so.

12:49 [Music] Now I'm in Southern California where we look at you as two pieces puzzle. Okay, there you go.

12:58 We I'm in Southern California where we look at you as two pieces of the puzzle. Escrow and title. Nationally, it's usually combined title attorney is a term people use or title company and doing closing as well. So, let's talk a little bit though about the title piece of it, the research and all that. You mentioned pre-flight. So, you know, when somebody has a file they're working on as a listing agent in a real estate transactions, we'll actually get a full prelim when we list the package so we have a chance to, you know, go into detail and see the legal. You're doing a pre-flight, but most of them that's sufficient and you're just doing what? A quick pull on the public records, the latest deed, that kind of thing.

13:33 No. So, for us, it's very different. So in our world, a pre-flight is something like, because again, we deal with reverse mortgages. We've got scenarios that are a little wild. Hey, I've got a potential order and, you know, I've got a deceased party on title and the deceased party had three kids in the marriage and they're not my borrower's children and they don't talk to him and one of them's in jail, by the way, and then the other one's out of the country, by the way, is well,

14:02 My kind of deal. So we try to look at those different. Yes, my people. That's what I do.

14:10 Wild. That's the house I sell and the attorneys I work with. That's the business. That's what it looks like. Okay. So you'll pull the pre-flight. It'll have on there who's on title.

14:22 No. Yeah. And even scenarios like sometimes, okay, maybe there's going to be probate involved. Don't open that order. Don't take that application yet. You need to start going through the courts and figuring out some states do have a probate department where you can start that process and maybe you don't have to go and pay an attorney. You can do it yourself, but there's a process. How much does that cost? Here, let us help you point you in the right direction. We can't give legal advice, but we're going to help our clients and point them in the right direction to make it the most beneficial for them and the borrower. We don't want to waste your time. We don't want you getting two and three, four appraisals because your file's been sitting for months because it's not ready to go. Our pre-flights are more so scenario-based. Is this even a viable loan? And if it is, what are the steps that it's going to take to get it to close before you go and take out that counseling and take that application?

15:10 You know, we talked about the importance of information and preparation, organization, and the best practices include having information on your website, which is, prclosings.com. There's a resource page, and I noticed that one of the resources you offer is TitlePro247. I use this every day. I don't when I hear agents ask me, "What is that?" Now, I know there's a couple competing products that are similar. Great. But I'm pulling the public record information and requesting copies of deeds, I want to say, every day. And that all requires is relationship with the title company that you work with and commit to that will give you access to it. So, talk a little bit about TitlePro247, how some of your clients use that to both research and prepare deals and come in organized. Absolutely. It's another kind of form of a way of a pre-flight. You know, again, we work with a lot of different clients in certain capacities. I would say on the larger lender level, a lot of them have their own internal departments where they're kind of sourcing those leads prior to sending that lead to a loan officer. But then you have some of the smaller companies who are doing their own leg work. They have their own leads. They don't have, you know, this batch of leads coming to them. They're doing their own footwork. So maybe they're, you know, met someone at church and now they're, you know, looking into them and they want to make sure that what this borrower, potential borrower is telling them is true and correct. Let me go pull a property profile to see if they're actually vested on title. Let me see if their taxes show that they've ever been in default. Things like that are going to matter because now, as soon as you see one default, Lisa straight away, and that's going to that could make or break a loan. So, I think a lot of loan officers, processors, whatever have you, whoever's processing or starting out that file, use TitlePro247 to kind of help them get a little bit of a glimpse of what's going on. Even property type and property use sometimes are important because, you know, is it a condo or is it a pud? Is it commercial?

17:04 Is it, you know, single family? Those things matter. Before you can go out and open an application on the lending side. Not privy to everything that the lender or broker needs, but I know that sometimes there's some information that had they known, you know, prior to we could have they could have had it ironed out and not had an issue versus having to not be able to work a deal because something that was going on within the property. They use TitlePro247 for that. They also use it for farming. There's a feature on there where you can for loan officers, they can go out, you can put in a zip code, a region, a county, a city, and you can go and, you know, use a little your mouse and make a make a star if you want to and any property within that star. You can put in all your criteria you want it single family bathroom and then get all of those leads. You pay for them because that's a premium farm lead. They're very cheap though. I have some flyers on that too. And then you print it out, you save it's yours. Now you can do a little mailer drip every, you know, couple weeks. You take about, you know, 50 to 100 of those leads that you got, you send out a mailer and you see what kind of response you get back from that. We've got a lot of loan officers who do that as well. So, you know, the tool is there for people to use however they wish and it's definitely something that we offer to our clients. We've got clients that send us orders daily, several, you know, a day and we've got some clients we don't see, but maybe, you know, a couple times a year. We're still going to give them access to that tool. They may just not have the same level of access, but it doesn't matter.

18:33 You know, a client of ours is definitely going to be able to use that, you know, working with us all day, every day. If you're a lender and you know a real estate agent in your market area, the door knocks, what a great tool. Pull all the properties that are free and clear and have door knock and offer reverse mortgage line of credit or reverse mortgage liquidity out. So few people know about this.

18:50 The Realtor® is glad to have something to talk about and you guys have on your website some nice material you can print out and use for that. So that's fantastic. You also have I guess once you sign up with you can go online and get a quote for the services online though I guess most

19:03 I think most agents just kind of email the escrow officer and ask them for an estimated net sheet but to me that the ability to do it myself I do a lot of that stuff after hours and weekends so having the fee calculator I think is important.

19:13 Well look Angel I know that I met your company through the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association and you're the only you know closing service company involved with that. You guys have been involved with it for a while. I've seen you being interviewed and on the podcast for about reverse mortgages. So I know this is the area that you're really committed to. So talk a little bit about your association in particular with NRMLA and you know what that means or how that gives you access to some of the best people in the business.

19:43 Well definitely something I come from the title and settlement world. I've only been in the role I'm in now, which is a sales role for about oh gosh, going on maybe six or seven years now. Does is that long? In any case, before then, I didn't know what I didn't know. I had a job and I did my job. I know people just from, you know, the sheer amount of time that I've been in this industry. But then, we had a lot of shifting happened in our market and specifically at our company. And I some roles changed and I stepped into a different role and I started to go to NRMLA events and it's a different level of colleague introduction. So people that maybe it's a company that I've worked with a really long time, but I don't work with the people that maybe I've met. And so you start to form and build different relationships and you start talking and thinking about things that are going on within the industry from a, you know, regulation, state government level. And you find out that kind of stuff ahead of time. And so then you can bring that back to your shop and then you can work on those things internally, you know, with our legal department, with our title department, with our escrow staff. And we can make sure that we're on top of whatever is going on within the industry. So, it's a really good opportunity to know, you know, who's on Capitol Hill for us. You know, what kind of things are advocating for out there for us, what things are bringing to their attention that matter for our industry specific to Reverse Mortgage.

21:07 And to be a part of that is great. You know, I've met a lot of great people that are I can consider friends. And then even just some colleagues that maybe aren't my friend, but they trust me and I trust them. If I'm in need, I can pick up the phone and I can call them. Then I can have confidence in doing that whenever there's a situation that requires that. So we've definitely support NRMLA. We have for as long as I can remember even before I was involved in attending conference that was one of the companies that we partnered with that we support we advocate for all day every day because we know that they represent our industry. You know they're the only one specific you know trade conference that is for reverse mortgages. So when you go there, I would say

21:51 At least 85% of the attendees are specific to the world of reverse versus, you know, any other national conference you go to, you may have a couple people here and there that may know or understand reverse, but that conference is specific to, you know, what's going on in the reverse world. So we definitely support NRMLA and hope that they continue to grow and get some new things going within the next coming years, too.

22:13 Well, I have to say that they're also cut above, right? When you when you meet a an originator or an executive, the executives at all companies are going to be high up if they're big companies, but when you meet an originator at NRMLA, they're serious. Like, they're doing real business. You might have a large company with a lot of originators who don't know what they're doing, but anybody who's going to NRMLA, getting certified, going through the training to me, I was there at the regional meeting a month ago, and I was I'm impressed. And I'm going tell you, they don't pay anything for me. I don't you know, I not sponsored by them. I'm open to it if you want to talk about it. But you know I just happened to bump on the website and interviewed a bunch of their originators and was continually impressed and have been and at that said seeing you guys as a supporter not just in money I'm sure you advertise but showing up and participating I just think is important. The reason I did this podcast is I really believe as an industry we should be doing 10 times as many reverses as we do. I have customers who should have reverses that don't. I don't have the time to explain it to all of them. And the problem is education and the problem is the quality of the people.

23:15 So I really appreciate that you guys are supporting I think of all of real estate. There's no set of letters that mean much more to me than NRMLA not to say there aren't great originators who aren't but all those who are my at least in my experience have been a cut above. And so thanks for you know behalf of the industry or outside I guess as just as a Realtor® person thanks for your support for that. Appreciate that. And to me that's a real sign of commitment on your part. Show. Well, look, I've been going for a while. I know you obviously are like me, a seasoned vet in this business. But for people who want more information, I put together a little banner that has your contact info, your phone number, as well as your extension, and your sales team email. And then the website we have is prclosings.com. And if you go there and click on lender broker, for example, you got brought right into where all the resources are. Best way to reach you that way, Angel?

24:04 Absolutely. Yep. You can catch me on LinkedIn as well if you wanted to reach out. My, you know, email, all that. It's not hard to find me. People I get calls all the time and sometimes it's a viable partnership and sometimes they just need some help. And I'm like, don't move your whole file and scenario. Go tell your title company this, go tell them that or ask them this question. And then to help them keep that loan where it's at and get that loan closed. And then in time, you know, relationships and partnerships form and they'll come back and say, you know what, you helped me this one time and I now I want to give you a try. And then they give us a try and then there we go. New partnership. So yeah, I'm open to any questions, any reachouts is never, you know, no question is too small. That's what we're here for.

24:45 Well, I appreciate it, Angel. It's been a pleasure again chatting with you and continuing your support. Thank you so much for being on our podcast today. Absolutely. Thanks for having me and I will definitely be in touch with you.

24:55 And for the rest of us, this was the Reverse Mortgage Podcast. We do this every week. We interview professionals in the field normally originators or management in reverse companies but in this case important I think service person to give us some perspective if not to use her as a service as well to understand what the best practices are and what the problems are to void. So I hope you found today's episode enjoyable. If you did put some comments if you like it or didn't like it. If you have some suggestions and there's somebody else you think I should interview, put that in the comments as well or reach out to me. I'm at Bill Gross Probate on social media. As always, make today your best