For those of you with Reverse Mortgage experience, is this a potential niche? Do you think it would be good to have training/education/certification to learn about Reverse Mortgages? Do they offer a higher fee?
That is a great question for LOs & T/EOs in your service region as this generally would vary according to the client base in each region.
During the years I’ve been providing these services, I find RMs are few & far in-between. When there is a query for an RM, most clients aren’t ‘interested’ in paying more (due to the potential for additional time required). 
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I would suppose it could be a better market depending on what part of the country you are in. If you live in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida…those are states with high senior populations. Reverse mortgages were always a HUD product and governed by FHA. More recently, mortgage companies are coming out with their own proprietary products so that HUD doesn’t have to approve the property and thus generate more potential homeowner borrowers. They do pay more because the packages are quite large and the borrowers are older and potentially take more time to walk them through the package. Goinig rate for where Ii am located is $150.
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Thank you for your insight.
I’ve taken 2 reverse mortgage applications and the pay low and the clients were old - obviously and so they wanted to tell me their life story. Which was sweet but in reality as a loan signing agent we are too busy for more than 45 minutes to one hour per appointment. These applications were taking over 2 hours. When the actual reverse mortgage was available I was offered the signing but the fee was too low for what I’m sure would have been over 3 hours!
Yeah, there’s definitely a niche there, especially with older homeowners. I’d suggest reading through the HUD HECM info and some breakdowns of reverse-mortgage closing costs first so you understand the structure and fees before jumping in.
You should always charge more. Some can take forever. The problem with that niche is the service that will keep you busiest with reverse is Notaroo and they think Net 90 is an acceptable payment term. When I started I did so many of them I had 900 dollars out for 3 months and I decided that was silly after they attempted to tell me that Reverse Mortgage funding takes longer.
I even write the owner and letter and said if you want them done and done right pay me on a net 30 and I’ll work for you again.
He has plenty of notaries doing things on net 90 and didn’t reach me back. I do a reverse once in a while but don’t care to, it’s impossible to manage a calendar when a reverse has to be accommodated.
Normally these Rev Mtgs are over 200 pages long and the fee that notaries in my area are doing them for around $75-100. They should start at $175-200. I’ve done some for $225-$280 before. The companies that are sending the notaries to do the work are charging these signers in the $300-$500, and they think all this money goes tot he notary. Au contraire, mon frère!!
My start fee is $150 and it goes up according to location.