California-based HighTechLending, a top-10 lender in the reverse mortgage industry, recently announced that it was rebranding its wholesale channel to American Senior Lending Wholesale Division in an effort to better align its identity with key business lines designed to serve older borrowers.
One of the ways the company aims to continue making a name for itself in the space is by taking a “boutique” approach to its customer service and partner relationships. The company doesn’t want to change the overarching experiences that partners have come to expect, but the rebrand will help to further emphasize a focus on serving older borrowers, according to Eric Ellsworth, the company’s executive vice president of sales.
“Same great company, same great people, but we’ve got a new, fresh brand,” Ellsworth said in an interview with HousingWire’s Reverse Mortgage Daily (RMD).
‘Red carpet service’
The company’s overall commitment to the senior demographic is better represented by the rebranding effort, Ellsworth said.
“I think when you ask about our colleagues in the industry, we’re committed to the 55-and-older demographic and helping them solve big problems,” he said. “One of the big problems that we know they have is cash flow, and our product, the reverse mortgage, can solve that problem. So, I think a rising tide lifts all ships, right? So, if we’re all committed to this demographic and helping them solve these problems, I think it’s good for everybody.”
Eric Ellsworth
As far as the size of the company goes, HighTechLending/American Senior is not the biggest player in the space, but the company makes a case for this being an advantage from a service perspective.
“We’re not this massive company and there are a lot of benefits to that,” Ellsworth explained. “When it comes to a broker working with someone like American Senior Lending Wholesale Division, our internal account executives are licensed loan officers [because] we want them to have the ability to help a broker or a partner all the way through.”
That includes tasks like data entry, customer outreach, underwriting and funding.
“We provide that red carpet service, which we call our ‘wingman program,’” Ellsworth said. “We’re your wingman — we will literally walk you through it if you’ve never done one before. The nice thing is, we can do as much or as little as needed. We can tailor the support you need as a wholesale broker on a need-specific basis.”
Tailored approach
By that same token, for those who don’t want as much of a high-touch level of assistance, Ellsworth said the company can accommodate that preference as well. Ultimately, the company just wants to get the word out about its wholesale division.
“We’re excited to expand this channel and grow it with the American Senior Lending brand. I think we can take it to the next level,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of people know much about our wholesale division, but when they do discover us, usually it’s a really good result.”
Rich Walker, the company’s vice president of wholesale reverse, added that the “boutique” approach can help the company tailor its service offerings, which might be more challenging if the company was much larger.
“We bring on a lot of partners, and we’ll have a meeting of the minds between their operations staff and ours so we can understand how they best like to operate, especially with our partners,” Walker said. “In the last year, we’ve brought on a few principal agent partners, which was a good experience that helped us grow from just [third-party origination (TPO)].”
Growing and creating value
The division is growing through the creation of new wholesale staff positions to specialize in partner support. And along with the support of account executives, the company has direct-endorsement underwriters that can assist broker partners with “more in-depth questions,” Walker said.
“This has been a real help, freeing up our account executives to pursue more business while still servicing the clients we already have,” Walker explained.
Ellsworth also mentioned the 2023 hiring of Phil Walker as vice president of retirement strategies as a key for HighTechLending, which is leveraging his experience in financial services to help facilitate leads for broker partners.
“We have a series for all of our brokers called the ‘financial planning series webinars,’ which offer continuing education credits for our brokers’ referral partners who are financial planners,” Ellsworth explained. “Our goal is to help our brokers grow their business.”
The company is in the middle of a series in which it’s teaching partners about effective reverse mortgage sales tactics. This adds to the desire for the company to offer value for partners as they seek to grow their presence in the space, Ellsworth said.
“If they need end-to-end help — someone to assist them in selling the loan — we can do that,” he said. “If they just need help with fast turn times and make-sense underwriting, we can do that too, because underwriting is one of our biggest advantages.”
Earlier this year, David Peskin announced that he would be purchasing an ownership stake in the company. According to Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) endorsement data compiled by Reverse Market Insight (RMI), HighTechLending was the 10th-largest reverse mortgage lender in the country, originating 413 loans in the 12-month period ending in July 2024.
