Colorado Reverse Mortgages, with Nathan Johnson

0:01 Well, on one hand, reverse mortgages are a national business. Other hand, it's always great to have people who have expertise in areas, states, or regions. I'm excited to have today coming from the Rocky Mountains, Colorado, Nathan Johnson, reverse mortgage analyst with Mutual of Omaha. Nathan, thank you so much for joining us today.

0:18 You bet, Bill. Thanks for having me on the Reverse Mortgage Podcast. Really appreciate the opportunity and look forward to our discussion. So, how did you how long have you been in reverse mortgages as a focus? And how did you get there?

0:31 Yeah, so starting in September, it'll be going into my 17th year. And I started actually my cousin was working for a national lender and they had a small branch here in Colorado Springs. So, I actually got started in 2002 back before all the fun technology we have now and had to find clients with roadmap books. You remember those trying to trying to find people.

0:58 But yeah. Yeah. So I started you know way back when, you know, there was a you know again a few lenders involved and really helped grew a local branch u and we were actually competing with Wells Fargo locally which was which is pretty good considering the time and day they had a pretty good pretty good hold on the market locally. And then built that into a was it was eventually a national sort of a national rep in and covered about six different states for Cherry Creek Mortgage Company and then eventually

1:39 Yep. And then eventually you know yeah I think they're now Guild Mortgage or something like that. So, they've transitioned a bit, but I've been with several other lenders and now am with Mutual of Omaha and really enjoy the culture and the

1:53 The emphasis on serving clients here. So, yeah. So, that's been kind of my journey. I took a little bit of a break in about 2010 2011. Got back in 2017 and yeah, I've just been loving what I've been able to do and really helped serve clients, a multiple a huge variety of clients from over the years. So it's been really wonderful.

2:23 For those who don't know about me, I was a mortgage originator before I was in real estate until about 2008. And I think in the 19 years I was in the business, I started 86. How's that work out? 23 years, I guess. That I probably had about 20 different companies because I kept merging and growing and merging and cutting. I never had a resume typed up. And Cherry Creek was one there in Cherry Creek, Colorado, the companies I crossed paths with those other companies just because it just seems it was like a game of checkers with these mortgage companies. And I think that's why it's so important this series for me is it's not the company though you work for a fine company Mutual of Omaha one of the top reverse mortgage originators in the country but it's really the person I think everybody listening this needs to know that's the individual originator probably that's going to be critical to you getting success and so let's talk a bit about that. I'm sure that you have you as a company marketing and all that, but there's people top producers like you and then there's the average and the bottom within your company and you stand out and so what do you think are the reasons why customers choose you over other originators or referral sources, attorneys, financial planners and wealth people? Why do you think they choose you over other ones or what is it you strive to be so they will choose you?

3:36 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I use the word reverse mortgage advisor. And I mean that at the very core of who I am and how I serve clients. And that's been I would say, you know, it's been a been a work in progress. You know, trying to learn how to because we're in a we're in an environment that's kind of a unique environment. The mortgage lending world, as you know, is kind of turned into now I don't think it's at its best place. It's transactional, but we've it's turned into more of a transactional industry. It's why we have Rocket Mortgage. You can go online, you don't have to talk to a person. There's so there's kind of this trajectory of mortgage that has kind of pushed our industry or kind of dragged our industry along with it. And what we found is our industry has kind of stagnated for years. We really haven't had a lot of growth. We've had we've had maintaining growth, but that's mainly because we've had this what I would call a we've kind of aligned ourselves with sales tactics and similar sort of hey you know here are some features some benefits sign a loan application today. So people will go on to websites and do the same thing they would do with a reverse as they would do with a mortgage. So the biggest problem and the largest gap that I've noticed over the years is that people number one especially generation you know with the baby boomers even prior to that with the greatest generation very wary of being sold to right they've they are probably targeted for so many different types of sales they actually own the most the boomers own the most real estate in the United States as a u as an age group and so what I found is that those tactics of sales just they didn't work for me internally, but they also don't really work in the long term.

5:33 And I say that with obviously with respect for all those that are involved in being in as a reverse mortgage salesperson, but I switched into the advisor role because I felt we are we are actually not just a mortgage. We are a blend. So this is a financial tool that has mortgage elements to it and that has to do a lot with the home asset and how unique that asset is in comparison with other assets. And so the discussion really begs a different type of a process and so as an advisor I have taken that role very seriously. So I have a unique process that is involving a discovery meeting that can that also moves into a design meeting and these are all education focused. They are not selling focused. They're really based on learning. I'm trying to learn as much about the client as they're also trying to learn about the program and what will it truly benefit them long term and how do they how do they use this financial tool. Right? So, that's a big piece of what I do when I'm talking with clients. And I'm looking for opportunities to not just help educate them, but also to help them understand their journey in this home asset, like how they've how they've amassed this amount of wealth, right?

6:56 Whether it's moving to different parts of the country and the home values going up or just simply hanging on to it, right? Paying off their mortgage. There's just a different conversation that happens with clients. And so what I found is being an adviser. I want I want advocates. I do not want just a bunch of customers. I want people that go this is the best thing I ever did and I'm going to tell everyone about it. And that's what I'm aiming for is not just not just getting a client. So, what was interesting about this too is we had the refi boom about four years ago, four or five years ago. And of the folks that were refinancing with me that were not my clients earlier, I noticed that at least half of them had no idea what they had done. They didn't know about their line of credit. They didn't know how it grew. They didn't know how to access it. Some of them they didn't know how to build the line of credit if they if that was part of the strategy. And so that alone just shocked me because I'm sitting there going, "What on earth are we doing here, folks? Half of them didn't know what they did." And this is a large financial transaction. It's not something to be taken lightly or just sold to like, "Hey, we're not we're not selling widgets here. We're actually selling a financial tool." So anyway, that's my little my spiel on what it is to be an adviser. And there's a lot more to it, but that's the real crux of it is helping people understand this is this is a big decision. And then they also want to have somebody with them after the closing because a lot of folks get dropped and they'll never hear from their from the person that sort of originated the loan. And I think I think we need to do better. Well, this is exactly why I launched this podcast because as a real estate agent occasionally and focus on probate, I would get people come to me with problems generated from reverse mortgages where originator was nowhere to be seen. And while you know there are customers who can self-help and go

8:59 Online and get the product, what they can't do is service it afterwards as you mentioned because there's nobody to service. It's 800 number because the company doesn't want to interact with the customers. You know, Google, Facebook don't want to call you back. That's why they set things up that way. That's why these large 800 number call in reverse mortgage call centers are that way. They don't want to talk to customers whereas you and I want to help people.

9:24 And also, I think that integrating the product or service with everything else they do. As a Realtor®, I want to integrate with the reverse mortgage lender, the financial planner, the attorney. And Facebook and Google and tech companies can write a product for a commodity. What they can't do is make it fit the individual situation.

9:42 That requires an advisor and so I try to do that as a real estate broker and that's exactly what you're doing. So hence I've created this podcast to find like-minded originators, promote their business and help me and my customers find their way to somebody. So let's talk a little bit about some of the things you do as opposed to 800 number I can deliver your reverse mortgage. I assume you can do that.

10:03 Let's talk a bit about first off post reverse mortgage and why it's so critical. Again, I launched this because so many people called me to say, "Hey, mom and dad died. They had reverse. We didn't know anything about it and we're now seven months in. We're facing foreclosure. Can you help us? Oh, wow. We hold title in their name. We have to go through probate. That takes a year. How do we avoid forclosure?" Talk a little bit about how you help customers avoid

10:26 Calling me with that phone call. Or if you get the phone call, you should call me with them. How do you help them with that? Well, first of all, I want to identify right off the bat who are who is helping them make this decision. Sometimes they'll lean into their kids. Other times their kids are well set. They're like, "Hey, mom, dad, just do what you want to do." sometimes there's nobody involved, right? They don't they don't have a trusted adviser. So, sometimes I do take that role on. Sometimes we're working with a financial adviser or sometimes it's a Realtor®. So, just yesterday I worked with a client who's just in the discovery phase. She had met with somebody else who was doing reverses part-time and she came in very confused like I don't even know what's going on. This doesn't make any sense. And so we had to take time just kind of walking through the history of the program because I really feel unless we talk about the DNA and how this program was built and why it was built,

11:25 We just end up with all kinds of weird conclusions as far as boy, this is a bad idea. Why did mom and dad do this, right? Or why what are what are some of the hidden, you know, the hidden gotchas with the loan? And to be quite honest, it's one of the best things the government's ever really helped design and bring into, you know, the HECM is a law. So, home equity conversion mortgage, the name of the reverse mortgage that we use, it's about over 90% of the reverse mortgages in the United States are these. And so, I think education is really important and I always like to just kind of back up from what I always like to find out what have you heard. So, that's the first question is what have you heard? What are your burning questions? I'm sure you have them. Sometimes folks come in and go, I don't even know what I should be asking. And I'm like, that's okay, right? And I think the other aspect of this is having a deep respect for the home wealth journey that this client has gone through. And the reason I do that is I like to ask questions of how did you get here? What was your first home like? Right? You obviously have sometimes they've been in that house for a while. And the reason I do that is I did a little experiment years ago when I was training some other folks in being reverse mortgage adviserss and we went around the room and I just did this kind of off the cuff and then all of a sudden I found out like, oh man, what did I what did I open up here? And it was this idea of what was your first memory as a young child, like little kid of home, right?

13:01 And the stories were all over the map. Some were military, had moved several times. Others had been in the house for their whole life. Others had sold and they had to move. So it was it was that kind of question. And then the next question was what was it like to leave that first home? And then what was it like to buy your first home? Right? And so, Bill, you've I'm sure you've experienced that with buyers over the years, right? Their first ever home and that or maybe now selling their home and they're going into assisted living or they're going, you know, or there's some other fin family dynamic of care, whatever that's happening. So that story and that journey was really important and it was very personal for me as well. When I was a kid, my dad built our first home in Minnesota by him by himself. He had some people help some contractors, but he built this home, right? So very proud of this. I go back to go check it out and it's a little older, right? It's the paint's changed a few. And I'm standing outside kind of awkwardly looking at the home and the owner's out there kind of trimming trees and raking stuff up in the yard. And I thought it was kind of awkward. I should probably say something. Well, I So I said I introduced myself. Hey, my dad built this house years ago. I just wanted to check in and see how it's doing. And he's like, "Yeah, you want it back?" I went, "what?" And all of a sudden, he started to just lay into all the negative things about the home. Well, these windows, so the siding, you know, some of this, you know, there's some He just started going and this is like a 40 It's a 40year-old home, right? Of course, it has some stuff. And I found myself getting kind of emotional like I like I wanted to confront this guy and like and I what I was what I realized in that moment is I'm like I got to well first of all I got to back off and so I just said thank you and I just left instead of getting into a

15:05 Whole thing but I realized that the home was something more than just this building right there was there was all these cherished memories of growing up in this space and that is What in a journey we are we are really talking about that carries through when we start talking about the home asset. If we don't have a sort of a category for that or at least a respect that there is something different about this asset then we're always going to be sort of running into well what's the program like? What's this? What we're really trying to do is say listen your home can now help you. It's an ally and here's how this can work. And that conversation is a very different conversation than okay, what's your rates and fees? Let's go, right? Let's get you know, let's get you to sign that loan app. You know,

16:02 We're just we're just we're having a different conversation. And so that's what I would say my discovery process entails much more. I've got I've got tons of questions. I literally have a two-sided sheet that I fill out when I'm working with clients and it's really to find out what can we really do to help benefit them and we talk about the four L's of retirement which is you know developed out by Wade FA and really the first one we're talking about is longevity right how can we make your money last and that's for a lot of clients that's a conversation we want to have but again this isn't just talking about I mean obviously the product is great there's some really great things about it. There's some limitations also, right? So, we have to work within those limitations because we can't give them all the equity. That would be irresponsible, but we're going to give a percentage to help and to integrate into their other assets to make their money last and make their retirement better. So, there you go. That's I guess that's a little difference in my process. So when we work with our customers on a more holistic basis, it both requires us to work with our other adviserss, but I think it also makes working with the other advisors more valuable, deeper, more intimate. Yes. I think more successful as a real estate agent when I know about the client's

17:23 Estate plan and their transition plans, retirement plans. Then in case I work on the state where it has multiple properties and I know the game plan something pops up out of the game plan I can call the attorney or the financial planner and say hey

17:39 This has popped up do we want to execute do you want to sell this property or this fill out of escrow maybe based on that change we don't want to sell it anymore and so I think that's where

17:48 Being involved in process talk a little bit how do you how do you share this process with your referral sources are they coming to you through your consumers or are you working with referral sources that bring you the consumers and you work that way.

18:00 Yeah, I would say there's a significant amount of clients that come to me through existing clients. I would the majority of my leads would actually would come from financial advisors, some attorneys, some CPAs, some real estate advisors as well. And that is that is probably the most important piece is just helping them understand my process and that when you send somebody to me I want to make sure this is lining up with some of the conversations you've already had, especially with a financial advisor or an estate an estate planning attorney. If there's been a plan already devised, I want to know what that is so we can say, "Okay, here's how we're going to blend this in." And that conversation's going to be, you know, when I have when I have clients for the first time, we do talk about wills, trusts, we talk about financial plans, how much do you have in assets? We're going through all of that because it all matters, right? Especially if it's if it's if they're if they're looking at their estate and they're they've got some complexity to it and they don't know who's going to inherit this asset and all their other assets, then yeah, we got to talk about trusts. We got to talk about how is this going to be actually carried out once you've passed away. This needs to have a landing place that's not going to drive everyone in your family around you crazy, right? You want to make sure you have Now, sometimes a will is just is okay, right? It can work. But a lot of times when there's other pieces going on, I want to make sure I know what those are.

19:46 And especially the planner is going to be interested in this too because the planner a lot of planners you know they'll when they're planning with a client they also want to work with their kids because they may be inheriting a large amount of that asset and financial advisors are really wanting to continue their relationship. They don't want it to just end when mom and dad or mom or dad passes. And so all of that's important. So, we are we are I want to name those people out front, but I really want my clients to know, listen, you've got to you've got to have a plan at the end of this so everyone is kind of is aware. We actually have a really great booklet that we hand afterwards. It's a u what happens after the reverse mortgage. It's a national reverse mortgage lenders association piece, but I always I put that on top

20:40 Yeah. I put that on top of the loan package when they've when they when they have gone to closing and we talk about all these pieces, right? Who do you want to be as your main contact person? Let them know what's happening. And then I'm here for family members. I have, you know, I get calls all the time from family members that are, "Okay, mom and dad have passed. Now what?" And so we just reassure them it's okay. We'll take it a step at a time. Contact your lender. Just start the conversation. Everything's going to be fine. You're going to be okay.

21:13 One of the balancing acts is I know there's sales companies that we recommend highly that when you interview a new client that you debrief on every vendor they work with and then attack each one of those vendors as a new sales source. And while on one hand I can see the value of having that customer's rolodex. On the other hand, I don't like giving that over to somebody who's new. That's a little intimate. Not sure how deeply I want to work with somebody from day one and not sure I want them to be the quarterback on the team. I might want them to be the backup quarterback to use football knowledge or have them be on the team.

21:46 So, where do you draw the line? How do you how do you decide who to reach out to on that team or, you know, identify versus other ones that you may not you know take the time to because a customer doesn't seem willing or doesn't offer that up.

22:01 Yep. Yep. So I would just identifying that first if the lead comes from a financial adviser. Obviously that's going to be an important relationship that I will continue to encourage them to go back to the adviser. I'll even get their permission. Can I share some of this information with your advisor, with your referral partner or referral source or your trusted adviser? Sometimes it's not even a financial adviser. It might be a trusted friend. It could be it could be anyone. So those conversations are important. I think also it's really trying to keep the goals. What are what are the goals that are the clients coming to you with? Now sometimes it's a very easy solve. We're really doing more triage, right? We're trying to eliminate a very I would say a mortgage payment that's draining a fixed income bucket, right? And so that's sometimes that's just as simple as that. However, there's another conversation afterwards is to say, what are we going to do with the savings each month? We have to direct those funds. We don't want them just pass through and keep spending because sometimes that may have gotten us into trouble in the past, right? So, we want to redirect those funds. So, all these conversations I feel is best even after we've done a closing is to say, "Okay, now what are we doing?" So, I'll do a three-month follow-up. I do a an annual I offer an annual review for clients which is quite unique. I don't think anyone else that I know of really does that. Maybe there's a few that offer it but the plan is really important. So, sometimes we also run into some really difficult situations, right? We may have a family member and this I've run into this sometimes where most of the family's on board and then there's one who's not and because he or she is going to they look at the home as theirs not mom and dad's and so that's it sometimes those are difficult conversations

24:04 But we have to engage them in okay who is going to care for mom and dad how are we going to fund their care if they need it at home bills become higher right I mean retirement is not cheaper it's actually more expensive. You know, whether it's medical bills or just hearing aids or, you know, the new refrigerator, all these things, right? There's just so many things.

24:28 They have time they have time off travel. Yeah. Right. Other spend so much more money. I just keep one of my grandkids every month in New York. Well, maybe that has something to do with it.

24:38 Yeah. So, you went over something. I'm sorry to turn circle back, but to me, this is really why I launched this podcast. I think the biggest missed opportunity for reverse mortgage originators to build more business. It's also I think so important value for consumers to stay out of trouble. You mentioned you do an annual review and I believe I'm not an expert in the subject but I believe most of the worst mortgage mortgages America require an annual statement by the borrower to verify it's still primary residence and a couple other key points

25:11 And that if that doesn't get done that's a problem but more importantly they start swimming too far away from the shore on their own without staying in touch with originator yes they can feel the form on their own they don't need to but to me why would originator not want to do an annual review. Why? I got to say a customer may not see the value and we're all busy and okay, but why would it why doesn't every mortgage originator attempt to get every customer an annual review to review that form to make sure they know who's next in line to head off potential problems? I don't understand that. And to me, it just seems so val. Talk a little bit about the value of those that you do get on annual review, what that does to your relationship and to your business. Yeah. So, what I found with clients when I when I am in the middle of this of an annual review, sometimes it just they call out of the blue and they're saying, "Hey, I really want to relook at this." I had I had one lady who was in tears just calling me. She's worried. Her HOA dues went up. She's she has the reverse mortgage line of credit, but the previous loan officer actually didn't spend a lot of time with helping her understand the reverse the reverse growing line of credit that she has. And what's interesting in that conversation is we went from she went from tears to the end of that conversation just an absolutely peaceful and what and what was great about it is we've we discovered well your line of credit is growing well over $300 a month. Your dues went up 50. So there's where you find your extra funds, right? So those conversations and there's others that I have with clients like for instance I had a client that sold a business and he's thinking, okay, what do I do with this these funds and so we looked at a couple different options and what he came to was this idea of well I want to grow this line of credit because it's

27:14 Growing taxree right now over 7%. So he actually made a large contribution basically paid down his loan balance and doubled his line of credit in one month and now that is growing at a substantial rate. So when I the reason I think a lot of I would say reverse mortgage specialists or even just salesmen they don't see themselves as an adviser. They see themselves as a mortgage originator. And that's the odd thing about our industry is we actually are giving we're handing people the keys to a very nice car. Okay? We're saying good luck, you know, have fun. And we're not we're not we're not following up with what I think is really a fiduciary responsibility that we have to say how is my client in doing better with this and what are the benefits and then how do I educate them and sometimes it's we have to have difficult conversations on spending right maybe we don't need to be spending money on this right well let's conserve this asset because we're going to need it in retirement you're living longer your health is great we have to learn how to conser preserve this asset and not just spend it. And then there's ways we can learn how to grow it. You know, I actually work with a budget coach and I send a lot of my clients to him. Sometimes it may be after the closing. Sometimes it's before we even have another meeting. I'm saying, "You got to talk to my budget guy and get your budget squared away and find some money, but make some goals as to what is most important in your life right now." And those things will direct the budget. So the after effect of having a conversation going back to your original question is I think is not only important it's a fiduciary role that I feel like we have to take on as reverse mortgage adviserss but I'll tell you there's so many opportunities though to be introduced to their friends, their adviserss, other

29:16 Folks that are in their world. Not from a place of well I just want to grab a bunch of contacts and start emailing them. No, it's why is this person important in your life? Let can you introduce me? And I've had that happen several times where I've got some great introductions to sometimes their neighbors or friends or family or an adviser. So, there's opportunities to have a greater influence in your client's life, but also in their sphere of influence.

29:48 Well, I think when you create value for other people, they're going to refer you good people. The people for you are only good because you've done well by them. I know I met you through a colleague Matt Allen and Oh yeah. Yeah. I think I think of what

30:01 Yeah, I think I sp what you're talking about. You know you also going to hit something that is one of my mantras. I have another podcast called the real estate market update where I kind of take the test the news because it makes people feel like victims. Hey, I can't help spending too much because the cost of living is going up. Well, yeah, but you nobody says you have to do this or that or this. What are cheap alternatives? And if you take control and start from I'm in charge,

30:29 And I make these decisions, not the world, and yes, the world's changing, but I can choose. Do I really need these services monthly? Do I need to live my life with this additional cost and expense and such, or is there an alternative way to do it that's more fun?

30:45 And I think as you get older, you have to really re-evaluate your choices. When I was a kid, I loved having new cars. As an older person, I don't drive as much and my wife and I have two older cars that are paid for

30:55 And yet I looked at a new car. I live in California where it's so expensive that it's much cheaper to do an Uber when we want to go out someplace nice and I get a nice Uber

31:04 And I don't spend as much on a month as I might on taxes and insurance on a car, let alone the cost of the car. So, Yep. Yep.

31:12 So, let's talk a little bit about, you know, how do you help people? I while I hear you talk about the tactics, I'm sure it also starts with the motivation. At some point, you to tell people, hey,

31:22 You're not a victim here. You can change your budget to use the budget coach. You can change your investment strategy. Talk about a little bit about those conversations you have with your customers.

31:32 Yeah. So it all starts really with I like to find out where how this so in our conversations typically I'm going to be asking clients not just about their assets but like tell me a little bit about not only your goals but what are you what are you really trying to accomplish and are those are these aligning and I think that's sometimes the interesting conversations that are these aligning with what I call modern retirement theory. It's not I call it but it's an actual website you can go to it but they talk about how important it is to set this idea of first we're trying to solve for longevity then we're looking at liquidity do I have a contingency fund so the first is base fund then contingency fund then discretionary and then legacy and the idea is in that order we want to rightly order things so sometimes folks will come to me and they're just saying well I'm just I just want my kids to get everything and I'm saying you know your kids are still going to get there they're still going to get an asset here. There's still going to be something left for them. However, how are we going to navigate retirement and the 15 risks that all are inherent in retirement, right? Whether it's loss of spouse, loss of income, health loss, all these different risks that create opportunities for us to talk about it without panicking and without fear. But also, we have to acknowledge it. We have to be aware this stuff is coming, right? Retirement has its challenges. And so when we're when we're going to have those budget conversations, sometimes I will actually just have a separate meeting with them.

33:19 And because we run out of time, the discovery meeting, a lot of times it's okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to set up another time to meet and we're going to talk about it might be a budget review. It might be an asset alignment conversation because I have quite a few clients that actually are in the, you know, have multi- multiple millions in net worth. And so that's a different conversation. And so it really depends on the client and where they're wanting to go, but I want to make sure that we're aligning it with those the four L's, right? We really want to make sure we've got longevity handled. And a lot of times that's the sneak that's the sneaky one when it comes to long-term care, right? So many people have kind of just said, "Well, I'll just I'll just hope things are going to be okay." Well, without long-term care insurance, even with long-term care insurance, my mom has it, and it's going to cover her for, you know, 250 bucks a day, but there might be additional care needed, right? My oldest client is a hundred years old, okay? He was a World War II vet. Just a decorated war hero and he burned through his entire retirement with basically paying for care. $22,000 a month. Can you imagine?

34:36 Yeah. But he wouldn't leave his home. He's like, "I'm not leaving. No one's taking me out of here." But that's that'll eat up a retirement asset really quickly. So, we're kind of we're coming in. We're going to still we're going to give him, you know, quite a few more years in his home. But these are all the things that we really want to try to try to help a client understand here's where you're at. We got to we got to solve for longevity first and then we want to talk about creating contingency funds and then the discretionary like the fun stuff, right? This is what makes retirement enjoyable. What are the what's the what's the key vacation you've really been wanting to take? Or what's maybe it's not even a vacation. Maybe it's just want to I want to be close to my grandkids or I want to, you know. So, yeah, those are those are some of the discussions I think that are important in that in that discovery meeting. I hope I answered your question. I don't know if I do dubtailed a little too much.

35:31 Yeah. I just I just thought we got a little bit long, but just I'm kind of anxious to hear you on a on a question that's been on my mind a lot, which is Yeah. I feel like I should have been put out of business five years ago by younger people

35:44 And a combination of co holding the next generation back and technology enabling me. I'm 66. I'm doing as much business as I ever have. I'm doing it more easily, I think, at a higher level.

35:56 Yeah. Yeah. And I see other people in our industry that are, you know, I'm not interviewing on this series. I've been looking for young bucks, younger people coming in or newer to this who bring new energy and yet I don't see that not just in reverse mortgages and for mortgages. I don't see it in attorneys. I haven't seen it in Realtors®

36:15 And while it went as a negative, the positive is somebody like me instead of retiring four years ago like I planned to, I'm still making really good money and building a business. Talk a little bit about how you see your career and that opportunity and where does that fit in for you or people like you?

36:31 Yeah. So before the market kind of had some we've had a little difficult market last, you know, three years. But I love those challenges though and I was actually building a team at that point and my goal is to go back to that at mutual there's some pathways that I can do that and I really enjoy introducing this even to a younger crowd. In fact, I was invited to u an attorney's office recently and I was I was noting the age in the room and they had a lot of I would say in the 20s like they'd hired a lot of folks to do their system is really based off of running seminars and that type of thing. And was interesting is I started to notice that you know this group had there was a lot of interest in this. You know, they were they were curious because they'd seen a lot of, you know, being in that world, they'd seen a lot of family dynamics and what's going on with the house. So one of one of the things that I would love to see is I would love to see not only folks my age, but I would because trainable, teachable, right? I want folks that are going to approach this from an advisory perspective. And I'd love to I'd love to be part of helping train advisors in this space. I feel we desperately need it if we're going to help. Yeah, we're going to have some growth just because of when rates come back. And we'll see that we'll see some growth in that. But I want to see more sustainable growth. I want to see this become part of the conversation. The HECMs reverse mortgage is part of the conversation.

38:19 We're in the accumulation phase and we're working with a mortgage, but on the distribution phase, we're working with a HECMs and we're going to work within the confines of the program, but there's so much that can be done. And so I really feel like what we need to see in this market is an introduction of more advisors that are really helping people understand their home wealth and helping them plan it sometimes even before a reverse. My I had a couple come into my office 50 years old and they their advisor said, "You got to go talk to Nathan because I wanna I want to blend this into your plan. When you turn 62, we want to turn on this line of credit. We want to get this thing rolling." Right.

39:04 Right. And so it was a very interesting conversation because they're actually younger than me. So I'm sitting here having this, you know, reverse, but I feel like I want it to kind of I want our industry to be better and I want us to be able to treat our clients better. And the way we do that is by creating more advisors. And that's probably one of my big passions. And that I'm going to be looking for ways and more ways. In fact, I'm planning on writing a book about this. I've already got a guy that's going to help me write it. But the idea is how do we create an advisor role when we're talking about the home asset and really elevate the conversation, not just make it about what's your fees and rates and you know, let's get you going on an app. We really need to elevate it because I think for longevity purposes I think this can be a powerful tool in the years to come especially with the huge transfer of wealth that's going to be happening the next 10 to 15 years in our country we really need to be well positioned and have true adviserss in that space as a reverse mortgage adviser

40:14 Well I well said Nathan that's why the reason why I launched this podcast as a Realtor® I see we need more and better originators in this space and I think anybody thinking of getting into this business or expanding in this field would be well served to pay attention to what you do and get in touch with you. I have up here let's see your website if somebody wanted to get in touch with you as well as your email and phone number down below. Is that the best contact info?

40:36 Yeah, absolutely. It's great. Fantastic. So you have a direct line for your website which is today's reverse.com today's reverse.com and the phone number [phone number]. Nathan Johnson is a top reverse mortgage originator out of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Serving Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming, and New Mexico. But more importantly, if you have questions regarding reverse mortgage, he's professional. Nathan, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate you.

41:03 Great to be here, Bill. Great to be with you and wish you the absolute best. Keep this thing going. This is great. So, thanks. Thanks for the opportunity.

41:11 Thanks so much. And this is the Reverse Mortgage Podcast. We get together every week with top originators like Nathan and vendors and management to talk about how to both serve our customers better and work with vendors in the space related spaces, attorneys, financial planners hopefully to learn also how to be better. If you have comments or want to participate more, go to the verse mortgage podcast group on Facebook. You can look for referrals there or you can offer referrals in other states and such. Ask questions. We have pretty active group. Look forward to seeing you there if I can help in any way. I'm Billgross Probate on social media. As always, make today your best day ever. Thanks so much.