Financial Freedom largely pioneered the reverse mortgage lending market with their nationwide network of “Reverse Mortgage Specialists.” They currently have around 400 field-based specialists but the number was once higher. Their model was akin to State Farm’s – an agent in every town.
It seems that model is giving way to the Geico model. Financial Freedom has been quietly building up a large call center in Irvine to handle the bulk of their sales. The reasons are ultimately economic but stem from the fact that Financial Freedom wasn’t able to effectively manage its field-based loan officers to get them to follow pipeline management and lead followup procedures.
Financial Freedom isn’t the only company moving to the higher volume, lower-cost call center model. Generation Mortgage and Quicken Loans (aka One Reverse) have moved in the call-center direction in the last year and other large players such as World Alliance (Senior Lending Network) have had this model for years.