Top U.S. reverse mortgage lenders are entering a new phase in their artificial intelligence (AI) strategy: deploying customer-facing tools to engage more directly with seniors.

After achieving operational efficiencies by using AI internally, lenders now plan to roll out chatbots, voice agents and digital prequalification tools to a broader base of borrowers starting in the fourth quarter of 2025.

So far, their approach has been incremental — testing new technologies with employees first, then with wholesale and limited partners, and finally opening them up to seniors once feedback loops are in place.

“You start internally, like on things that have customer benefit but not direct customer impact, then you learn and expand out your reach,” said Brian Conneen, chief information officer at Finance of America (FOA).  

At FOA, employees now use a large language model trained on company policies and procedures to answer questions and link back to source documents. That shift has brought “a huge efficiency gain” while reducing escalations to managers, Conneen said.  

The lender isn’t yet comfortable putting GPT directly in front of customers. Instead, it is piloting AI tools with wholesale partners — considered more sophisticated users — to refine responses and guardrails. “Once we get that feedback, we could expand in a more restricted way to customers asking questions that we would monitor closely, like scripted responses,” Conneen added.

Meanwhile, FOA expects to introduce its AI-powered virtual call agent later this year. Seniors will be able to have natural conversations with an AI-powered assistant, which will hand off to a human loan officer if questions become too complex.

‘Hi, Bridget’

Longbridge Financial, owned by Ellington Financial, is also developing a voice agent that will allow stakeholders to interact with the company after hours, on weekends and at their convenience for routine tasks. But they will always have the option to connect with a human agent.

“We see these voice agents as providing capabilities,” said Bill Packer, chief operating officer at Longbridge. “When will we move these AI agents to be interacting directly with the customer? I think very quickly — probably, in the fourth quarter of this year, we will be ready on the servicing side to do some initial voice agent work.”

The company also plans to expand its AI chatbot, Bridget, which launched internally in July 2024. After a year of employee-only use, Bridget was extended to wholesale partners via the company’s portal this July. “We haven’t yet moved to having her face off with customers. We’re thinking about that,” Packer said.

Bridget has quickly become a high-traffic tool. In August alone, it handled 6,000 questions ranging from product guidelines to servicing issues and even responses related to natural disasters. It is now being trained to compare loan documents against investor guidelines. Underwriting is the most common area of inquiry — both from loan officers who occasionally originate reverse mortgages and from specialists in the segment.

Is the customer ready?

One challenge lies in the diversity of the reverse mortgage customer base. Borrowers can range from tech-comfortable 55-year-olds to seniors in their 70s who may prefer to avoid digital tools altogether. Companies must therefore design parallel experiences — both digital and call-center based — to meet customers where they are

“When we talk about older Americans, they are not a monolith,” Packer said. “Each of those populations across those cohorts has slightly different needs, views on it. If you don’t make it about the AI, but just make it about a seamless experience, then it never even enters their consciousness.” 

Longbridge reports that nearly 98% of its customers electronically sign origination documents, a sign that digital adoption can succeed when technology feels invisible. It comes back to making human-centered design decisions so that the technology is just a seamless background, Packer said.

Security and privacy remain key considerations. According to Conneen, collecting sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, can create hesitation. To address this, lenders are experimenting with approaches such as requesting only the last four digits or deferring collection until later in the process.

“These are the kinds of things we’ll experiment with as we go forward,” Conneen said.

The AI journey

Reverse mortgage executives say AI is quickly gaining traction even as it remains in its early stages.

Longbridge has created cross-functional project groups in each core area of the business — marketing, retail, wholesale, servicing, default resolution, legal and compliance. Each group is tasked with exploring how to bring next-generation technology into its domain.

So far, the company has seen measurable productivity gains. In servicing, Longbridge deployed an exception system that eliminates “stare and compare” tasks. The AI reads documents, applies business rules and flags items for human review only when needed.

The result: three to five times higher productivity for the servicing team and up to a two-thirds reduction in errors. In some cases, the system even outperforms humans — particularly in deciphering handwriting.

Longbridge has already moved the tool into correspondent purchases and plans to fully automate that process once parallel testing with human reviewers is phased out. “Once we feel comfortable there, then it’ll continue to just move up that value chain forward into the rest of the origination space,” Packer said. 

Meanwhile, Conneen said FOA launched its first digital prequalification tool in June. The pilot started with the HomeSafe Second product before rolling out across multiple products as an opt-in option for customers. Currently, on any given day, about 60% to 80% of customers expressing interest have this option available.  

“As we continue in Q4 and beyond, we’re going to go deeper in the experience so that as they talk to the LO, they can continue to engage digitally on some things, or could come back.” 

That flexibility could help speed up closings. Conneen sees a 25% to 40% reduction in timelines as realistic once more customers engage digitally.

It’s not just that it makes the customer faster – as the customer self-services, it also makes LOs and customer service representatives more efficient. Less time spent per customer means each LO and CSR can serve more customers. “It becomes a virtuous cycle,” Conneen said. 

With the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicting that Social Security’s retirement trust funds will run out by 2032, policymakers are being forced to act fast.

When asked during Fox Business News‘s “Mornings with Maria” segment on Thursday whether the retirement age would change, Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano said “everything’s being considered” to stabilize the system.

Bisignano added that younger generations are likely to face “a different set of rules” than current retirees.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the population paying into and drawing from Social Security will rise from 342 million in 2024 to 383 million in 2054.

With fertility rates low, the CBO expects immigration to account for all population growth after 2040.

But Bisignano said raising the retirement age is not the only option. He pointed to adjustments to the $175,000 earnings cap for benefits and other measures under review.

If the trust funds run dry, federal law requires Social Security to cut benefits to match incoming payroll taxes, resulting in an average 24% reduction, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The program’s trustees estimate that Congress would need to raise payroll taxes from 12.4% to 16.05% to close its 75-year funding gap.

Bisignano said officials are also considering raising the Social Security contribution cap.

“That number will continue to increase also, of where the max is, and that’s another thing that people put in the equation to think about,” he said. “Eight years is a long time away. We’re less than 200 days into this administration, and we need Congress to partner with us.”

In a Friday post on X, the SSA wrote that, “SSA Commissioner Bisignano is committed to protecting and preserving Social Security.

“SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano said, ‘Let me be clear: President Trump and I will always protect, and never cut, Social Security. That’s why we have made many vital reforms, such as cutting waste, fraud, and abuse from the program, to ensure the solvency of Social Security for future generations of Americans. Raising the retirement age is not under consideration.’”

Editor’s note: This story was updated with the SSA’s social media statement.

Stellar MLS, the largest MLS in Florida, and the Miami Association of Realtors, the nation’s largest local Realtor association, have entered into a reciprocal access agreement, the groups announced Friday. 

Stellar MLS currently serves about 30% of Florida’s land area across 18 counties and Puerto Rico. With this agreement, Stellar MLS members will now have access to additional listings in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

“Our reciprocal MLS access agreement with Miami Realtors is a win for real estate professionals, the consumers they serve, and ultimately, the industry as a whole,” Merri Jo Cowen, the CEO of Stellar MLS, said in a statement. “It connects major markets across Florida and gives our collective customers a broader, more timely view of the marketplace. 

Through the reciprocal access agreement, members of Stellar MLS and Miami Realtors will be able to search and view listings in both systems without having to sign up for an additional membership. Reciprocal access is slated to begin on Sept. 30. 

“MIAMI and its data share partners are gaining even more listing exposure for their clients thanks to these landmark partnerships in key markets,” Teresa King Kinney, the CEO of Miami Realtors, said in a statement. 

According to the release, both MLSs use Matrix, allowing subscribers to have a seamless and familiar experience in either database. 

In August, Miami Realtors announced that it had entered into a reciprocal data share agreement with Bright MLS and Georgia’s First Multiple Listing Service (FMLS).

As home prices and mortgage rates continue to stretch budgets, many would-be homebuyers are wondering if they’ll ever be able to make the jump.

Industry professionals say that creative financing tools and professional guidance can make homeownership more attainable, but a lack of awareness continues to stand in the way.

Three voices from different corners of the housing industry — a former agent turned property inspector, a national housing economist, and the founder of a resource hub for down payment programs — each described to HousingWire how affordability pressures have evolved, what’s available to help buyers and why too few people know where to look.

Watching the market shift from both sides

John Obermiller, a former Century 21 agent in North Carolina who now inspects properties for a local municipality, has seen the market both as a professional and as a potential buyer.

Even with some recent cooling, he said affordability remains the central barrier.

“In my general area, things have slowed down,” Obermiller said. “Houses are sitting on the market for a while. However, there are particular neighborhoods that are (promoted) specifically through the Realtors marketing directly to New York, New Jersey, and they’re drawing people in specifically to those neighborhoods.”

Obermiller pointed to builders such as D.R. Horton, which advertise relatively lower per-square-foot prices than competitors. But he said monthly costs remain daunting.

“(D.R. Horton) was the last I knew that were building at about $190 a square foot, which is well below $285 and over $300 for the rest of the builders,” he said. “But even then, I figured out pretty quick what the payments are for something like a $350,000 loan with everything tied in. I think it was running about $3,000 a month, just for a starter home.”

Cash buyers from higher-cost states make competition harder for locals, he added. But specialized programs offer buyers the chance to rent before buying, allowing time to save.

“In essence, what they’re doing is they’re allowing someone to pick out a home that they’re interested in,” Obermiller said. “This company will then purchase the home for them, and it will then rent back for around a year, and then they will allow the person to close if they choose to. If they don’t choose to, then they walk away.”

How the market heated up

Obermiller said the portability of jobs and influx of work-from-home employees free to move wherever they like that began during the COVID-19 pandemic continues to effect the flow of housing.

“People who weren’t able to move and qualify could now move and still qualify for a home at a higher income,” he said. “So they had a higher income from another area. They had higher equity in their home, so now they had greater purchasing power. Of course, bidding wars resulted.”

Obermiller also argues that appraisals and lender practices allowed inflated values to stick.

“Nothing changed in the industry. It didn’t cost more to build the houses, none of that,” he said. “But they kept pricing higher and higher and higher, and so you keep having this flood of people coming in and higher demand. But the point is that the banks are now being put on the hook. They’re supporting that higher price point. The banks are allowing that loan to support that higher price point.”

He said that limiting appraisals to true market values, with buyers covering any excess on their own, could have tempered the surge.

Bill Garber, director of communications for the Appraisal Institute, directly refuses that notion.

“Appraisers are an easy scapegoat on both sides of this,” he said. “When sellers are trying to sell, they have certain expectations. And when buyers are trying to buy, they have certain expectations.”

Garber emphasized that appraisers are meant to remain independent, focusing only on establishing fair market value.

“There is a difference between price and value,” he said. “The market dynamics can skew in certain directions, but the appraiser’s job is to just keep their eye on the market value ball.”

That role, he added, is critical for lenders that must ensure their loans are safe and sound.

“They don’t want to lend on something that’s not worth what people think it is. It doesn’t benefit the borrower. It doesn’t benefit the lender,” Garber said.

Agents, awareness and buyer sacrifices

Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist and vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors (NAR), said agents are increasingly stepping in to guide buyers toward affordability programs.

“Realtors are helping their clients understand low down payment options that could be available in their local communities,” Lautz said. “In fact, some agents will make this into a niche, working with first-time homebuyers to really help them understand what programs could be available to help with pointing them in the right direction.

“Mortgage brokers are experts in this topic, as well. There’s also FHA loans, VA loans, USDA loans — then you have state and local communities that may have programs as well.”

Even with these programs, Lautz said many successful buyers rely on personal sacrifice.

“We’ve seen successful homebuyers cut spending everywhere they can,” she said. “So non-essential items go out the window, as well as spending on clothes or going out to eat. Some do take second jobs to be able to save for a down payment. So they’re willing to make that sacrifice, and then others even move in with family before purchasing so that they don’t have to pay rent, which can be very costly in many communities.”

A persistent obstacle, Lautz said, is that buyers often don’t realize help is available.

“The myth of the 20% down payment is very persistent, even though there are low down payment options,” she said. “So, getting the word out to consumers, I think, is half the battle, and I think homeownership could be much closer within reach if people were aware of these programs.”

Lautz noted that falling mortgage rates in recent months have already spurred demand. “Certainly, seeing a change in mortgage interest rates has been very encouraging, and mortgage applications are up this week as a result of that,” she said.

She also pointed to a variety housing types — condominiums, accessory dwelling units and adaptive reuse — as ways to broaden affordable supply.

Tracking programs that buyers don’t realize exist

Rob Chrane, founder and CEO of Down Payment Resource, leads the largest nationwide database of homeownership programs. His company tracks more than 2,500 initiatives across the country, ranging from grants to affordable mortgage products.

“Seventy-five percent of the programs in the database are some type of down payment help or closing cost help,” Chrane said. “You know, they could be grants, they could be repayable, they could be forgivable. But we really are tracking about 11 or 12 different types of programs.”

Chrane said eligibility typically combines household income and property limits.

“There’s a component that has to do with certain household characteristics,” he said. “And then there’s also the property has to be eligible, because when you think about it, every one of these programs has some sort of specific geographic boundary.”

Some programs, he noted, even allow small multiunit properties if the buyer occupies one unit.

Connecting through agents, LOs and MLSs

The database is integrated with multiple listing services nationwide, flagging eligible properties for agents. Between 600,000 and 700,000 agents now have access, Chrane said.

The platform also works with consumer-facing search portals such as Realtor.com.

“Somebody said to me one time that the problem isn’t coming up with a down payment,” Chrane said. “The problem is understanding that these programs exist. People just don’t know there’s such a thing.”

He said early exposure to available help through property searches can reshape buyer expectations well before the purchase occurs.

“And our largest MLS customer has a little over 100,000 members,” Chrane said. “I can tell you, there’s still agents out there that have access to our tools that don’t even realize it.”

Far from shrinking, Chrane said the number of programs is steadily climbing.

“There’s no single silver bullet (to tackle unaffordability), but obviously, down payment assistance can help a lot — and it does help in a lot of situations,” he said. “Hopefully, interest rates come down, but you can’t bet on that. So it’s about increasing supply and helping people.”

From Obermiller’s view of inflated prices and cash-rich competition, to Lautz’s emphasis on agent guidance and consumer education, to Chrane’s mission of cataloging thousands of aid programs, the message is consistent: help exists but too few buyers know about it.

Homeowners in New York and Washington, D.C., stand to gain the most from the recently expanded federal cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions — with typical households in these locations saving more than $7,000 a year, according to a Redfin report released Thursday.

The change — part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act — raised the deduction limit from $10,000 to $40,000.

SALT applies to homeowners who itemize their federal tax returns. It includes state and local income, property and sales taxes.

New York, DC tops in savings

The typical New York homeowner affected by the higher SALT cap will save $7,092 annually, Redfin estimated. That led all states and trailed only the District of Columbia ($7,200).

California followed New York at $3,995 in median savings, with New Jersey ($3,897), Massachusetts ($3,835) and Connecticut ($3,133) rounding out the top five.

At the metro level, Nassau County, New York, led the nation with average annual savings of $7,200 — the maximum possible deduction. San Francisco ($6,843), San Jose ($6,661), New York City ($5,473) and Oakland ($5,455) also ranked high in the report.

Where savings are smallest

At the other end of the spectrum, South Dakota homeowners will save $1,033 a year, the lowest figure of any state. Alaska ($1,052), Nevada ($1,090), Tennessee ($1,097) and New Hampshire ($1,101) followed.

“For households in these states, the only real way to benefit is if their home is valuable enough for property taxes to exceed $10,000,” said Asad Khan, Redfin’s senior economist. “Even then, the savings are relatively small, since many of these owners are just barely over the old limit.”

Khan also noted that all five of the lowest-ranked states don’t have a state income tax, reducing the likelihood that homeowners would have exceeded the prior $10,000 cap.

Who benefits most

The share of homeowners likely to gain from the cap varies sharply by state.

In Massachusetts, 85.5% of households could benefit if they itemize deductions — the highest rate in the country. New Jersey (84.2%), Oregon (79.8%), New York (75.8%) and California (74.3%) followed.

Only 1% of Tennessee homeowners are expected to benefit, the lowest of any state.

Nevada (1.2%), Wyoming (2.2%), South Dakota (2.8%) and Alaska (3.3%) also had some of the smallest shares.

“West Virginia has the lowest median home value in the country, but nearly a third of homeowners there could benefit from the new cap,” Khan said. “Benefits vary so widely because the mix of home values, property taxes, and income taxes looks very different depending on where you live.”

Limited effect on home prices

“Homebuyers in states like Illinois, where the potential tax savings are high relative to home prices, may look at the new SALT cap as an opportunity to increase their homebuying budget,” Khan said. “Theoretically, that could lead to an increase in demand, and higher prices.”

But in expensive coastal metros, Khan said, the tax breaks are modest compared to home values.

Homeowners in Midwest cities like Cleveland, Indianapolis, Chicago and Pittsburgh are expected to see bigger returns relative to property prices, the report explained.