HousingWireHousingWire
Mike Kent is a busy man.
He’s been a key figure at Onity Group’s Liberty Reverse Mortgage for most of the past decade. He’s also served as co-chair of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA) since 2019, and he now serves as senior vice president of reverse asset management and industry relations for Liberty and PHH Mortgage Corp.
Finding time on the sidelines of NRMLA’s recent Western Regional Meeting in Irvine, California, Kent was ready to discuss some of the details surrounding the recent relaunch of EquityIQ, Liberty’s proprietary reverse mortgage offering.
Having launched a private-label product under that name in the past, the 2025 iteration arrives in a more crowded field of proprietary products. But Kent expressed confidence in the value proposition of EquityIQ.
The brand returns
When asked specifically about whether the new version of EquityIQ is the same as the previous one, Kent said there are some key differences but the brand name itself is seen as a strength.
“We love the brand name,” he said. “We think there’s a level of following to it. If you don’t have to start from scratch, you prefer not to.”
The differences between the new version of EquityIQ and what had previously been introduced primarily boils down to more “open and flexible guidelines,” Kent said. It takes condominiums into account more while providing what he calls “a fresh look at financial assessment.”
Proprietary reverse mortgages, broadly speaking, are not tied to Federal Housing Administration (FHA) requirements the same way that Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs) are. This allows for additional flexibility, Kent said.
“With HECMs, a lot of the time, the reason some may start but not get done is because there’s a document deficiency, or what can be provided doesn’t meet [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development]’s guidelines,” he said. “But often to the underwriter, what was provided makes perfect sense. So you have that flexibility, which really makes it a different kind of product.”
He added that he would call the 2025 iteration of EquityIQ “a new product in its current design, however, it is a fully funded fixed-rate loan, so that hasn’t changed.”
Proprietary reverse mortgage plans
In earnings calls, Onity Group leadership has been generally complimentary of Liberty’s contributions to the overall company’s profitability. Kent said that made the reintroduction of EquityIQ a factor in planning for the ways that 2025 would play out for its reverse mortgage arm.
“What it allows us to do is just engage even deeper with our existing customers,” he said. “We’re really, when you think about it, the only end-to-end reverse mortgage company — meaning the loans we originate are the loans we service, and we service them until the borrower is no longer eligible for a HECM, whether they pass away or they go into assisted living.”
The end-to-end element of Liberty is core to its identity, Kent said, and it allows for broader engagement with customers as well as other professional partners.
“Proprietary just allows our B2B customers to stay with us for that whole journey,” he said. “Whether it be a HECM loan or a proprietary loan, being able to offer both — and this may not be the only version of our proprietary loan — just allows our customers to stay that much more engaged in us. It really allows us to offer additional options to our existing customers.”
A more crowded field
But the proprietary reverse mortgage space is also more crowded than it has been in years past, with the emergence of new product providers like Smartfi Home Loans as well as the recent launch of a new product from HECM market leader Mutual of Omaha Mortgage.
When it comes to the ways that Liberty can stand out with EquityIQ, Kent said it comes down to a tradition of service.
“Our hope is, in addition to launching a proprietary product, other things we’re doing in our business to expand our customer base and our distribution networks give us a leg up,” he said. “We have a very large forward origination business that we’re expanding the reverse mortgage product into, and a very large forward servicing portfolio. That will also allow us to expand EquityIQ into the right demographic within that servicing portfolio.”
Still, in staying consistent with the themes that Kent and fellow NRMLA co-chair Jim Cory shared earlier that day at the Irvine event, he welcomes the more crowded field.
“I think more people in the space is better than less,” he said.
