subject: The Major Accomplishments Of The Nrmla Annual Conference In New Orleans [print this page] The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association recently held its annual conference in New Orleans and all reports show that the event was a great success. Representing Legacy Reverse Mortgage at the Conference were President Jim Cory and Executive Vice President Todd Ausherman, who completed his undergraduate education at Loyola University in New Orleans.
While there were a number of topics which were addressed at the Conference this year, several received national attention and were the focus for a number of the presentations that were given. Uppermost on the agenda in the reverse mortgage industry is the elimination of advertising and marketing processes that are misleading at best or blatant misrepresentation at worst. The guidelines for advertising the reverse mortgage product were discussed during the conference as well as being addressed by the NRMLA Ethics Committee.
Legacy Reverse Mortgages President, Jim Cory is also the Vice Chair of the Ethics Committee, which released a guideline for reverse mortgage advertising which includes a listing of advertisements that should not be used to garner the interest of potential new customers. Of the complaints that have come into the Federal Trade Commission in regards to the reverse mortgage in 2010, the majority have been in relation to advertisements that violate these ethical standards as well as potentially breaking state and federal laws. The FTC has suggested that there might be the potential for some civil penalties meted out in response to these predatory advertisements.
Complaints filed about the reverse mortgage are down some 54% from the previous year. The 32 complaints that were filed were directly related to deceptive advertisement practices. The Committee will address the complaints, which deal with such things as direct mailers that look like they have come from an official government source, some which have the HUD logo on them, that direct recipients to a reverse mortgage lender under false pretenses.
Also included at the Conference was a general session during which Rasky Baerlein, a public relations firm, reported on recent focus groups that were conducted involving three different groups of people. These groups including senior citizens who already had a reverse mortgage, those who were qualified but did not have one and the adult children of qualified adults. Final results were not available in time for the Conference; however, the preliminary findings are indicating that the reverse mortgage is far more popular than had originally been thought.
With more and more seniors heading to that critical age, the reverse mortgage is going to continue to be a valid solution to the problems seniors face as debts continue to climb along with their cost of living. Some seniors are faced with lowering their standard of living or selling their home and hoping for the best in a still recovering real estate market. Using the reverse mortgage calculator will allow many seniors to find out how much they might qualify for and then allow them to decide whether to take the next step of reverse mortgage quotes or not.
