I apologize for the lack of posts over the last few days, but the MBA Reverse Mortgage Conference in San Diego was very time consuming. I hope to make up for it with some interesting tidbits, great pictures, and new guest writers in the weeks to come.  Now for the recap of what I did last week:

Day 1

The conference kicked off with a welcome reception outside at the hotel.  The purple sushi was a highlight (I have never seen purple rice before). So was meeting some of the people at the conference.  The event was a joint event with the MBA’s Document Management and Custody Conference, and it was an added bonus to meet some of its attendees.

Day 2

The conference really began bright and early the next morning. However, those who did wake up on time were treated to a wonderful keynote/state of the industry session.  Meg Burns, Director of the Office of Single Family Program Development for the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), provided a lot of particularly insightful information about the FHA’s plans for the reverse mortgage space this coming year. While many of the things FHA is thinking about have been discussed for some time, it was interesting and valuable to hear a lot of the information straight from the FHA.  Expect postings on the HECM Mini and the T&I Set Aside to come soon.

The rest of the day was filled with some other useful sessions (and a very good lunch) before ending with another networking reception in the exhibit hall. Some highlights included the session on REOs, Foreclosures, and Loss Mitigation, which was moderated very skillfully by Neil Morse. One of the most interactive sessions I’ve attended at a conference so far, even some of the more experienced participants learned new information and had misconceptions corrected. The session on Counseling, featuring the heads of MMI and NHCA, was also quite useful, providing a valuable look into the way two of the leading HECM counseling agencies operate.

Day 3

The final day of the conference featured three general sessions, as the crowd progressively thinned as people rushed to the airport to catch their flights. The legislative and regulatory round-up went through each state’s reverse mortgage legislation, as well as a brief overview of some of the federal legislation of particular importance. To answer the much debated question about when co-ops will become eligible for HECMs, the mortgagee letter is expected in October, with implementation expected to take place around January 1. However, the mortgagee letter is expected to set a record for the most amount of pages in a mortgagee letter– meaning that implementing the co-op eligibility may be to cumbersome to have the desired effect. We’ll have to wait and see.

The session on Reverse Mortgage Fraud was interesting in that it showed how easy identity theft can be. While the biometrics proposed by the speaker, C. Robert Simpson, were very cutting-edge and secure, their cost made me doubt that they would ever be able to be widely applied to the reverse mortgage industry. However, I agreed with his idea that the ability to protect your identity using biometrics could be very valuable.

The conference ended with a session on the state of the secondary market. Much of this information was not new, but it was hopeful to see how much the Ginnie Mae pool has grown in the last few months. However, I did not find the session encouraging to those who wanted to get into the reverse mortgage wholesale market.

With the sessions ended and the booths packed up, those who remained headed to catch their flights (or head back to the office).

As a parting note, some pictures from the conference:

Driving downtown from the San Diego airport

The gigantic king-size bed at the hotel

Downtown San Diego as seen from my flight home.

I had a great time at the conference. I can’t wait to go back!  With the MBA Annual Conference in San Diego in mid October and the NRMLA Annual Conference also in San Diego in mid November, there’s no better excuse for a trip.