The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has issued regulatory guidance in the past year that has had a “significant impact on counseling” for prospective Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) borrowers.
That’s according to Melinda Opperman, the chief external affairs officer for Credit.org, a national nonprofit financial counseling agency. In a recent interview with HousingWire’s Reverse Mortgage Daily (RMD), Opperman discussed these regulatory moves and offered a status report on how HECM counselors are serving what’s expected to be a growing consumer base in the coming years.
Reverse mortgage lenders have recently expressed a need to expand their workforce to better serve a larger senior population. Counseling agencies are no different, Opperman said, although she doesn’t think Credit.org will be “constrained at all” due to its “small army of long-tenured HECM reverse mortgage counselors.”
“The whole silver tsunami thing, it is so real,” she added. “As these baby boomers are growing older, we are already seeing the increased demand for senior-focused financial solutions like the reverse mortgage. … There’s a long-term imperative to expand and adapt the counseling capacity and the delivery options to serve this aging population.
“Quality counseling is really what is helping the seniors understand the HECM product, and then, of course, there’s proprietary reverse mortgage products. It’s really helping them understand what options they have. And all HUD-approved HECM housing counselors, they’re unbiased educators. We don’t represent lenders. The counseling is there to serve the homeowner. Like any financial product, reverse mortgages have both benefits and risk, and because of that, counseling is required to ensure the homeowners make an informed decision.”
Remote counseling
In October 2024, HUD implemented a new rule that clarifies details on the delivery methods for housing counseling services. This coincided with the department’s decision to partner with real estate listings giant Zillow on its “Let’s Make Home the Goal” campaign. The advertising push is designed to spread awareness about the benefits of HUD-certified counseling prior to a home purchase, particularly for underserved borrower groups such as communities of color.
More specific to the reverse mortgage industry, however, is HUD’s clarification that HECM counseling can be conducted via virtual platforms, telephone or hybrid models, as long as in-person options remain available on request.
The rule was issued not long after the conclusion of a lengthy saga in Massachusetts, where state lawmakers and reverse mortgage industry advocates spent more than a decade trying to remove a strict face-to-face counseling requirement. They finally succeeded in May 2024 when Gov. Maura Healey signed a bill allowing counseling services to be done through phone or video conferencing.
Opperman said that remote counseling efforts were “beneficial as an outbirth of the pandemic,” especially for organizations like Credit.org that didn’t have a physical location in Massachusetts. And in rural areas of the country, office locations may be few and far between.
“Many of the seniors have let us know that they’re comfortable driving in their immediate area, their immediate neighborhood,” Opperman said. “But to have to get on one of the highways, freeways, thoroughfares, to then get into a brick-and-mortar office that may be 90 minutes away is not something that would be convenient to them.”
She noted that many seniors prefer phone-based counseling. If they have a hearing impairment, for example, they can adjust the volume or eliminate background noise through their device. Other seniors may be restricted from traveling not by distance but by mobility issues.
“The demand for the phone counseling has been huge,” Opperman said.
English-only policy
Last month, HUD issued a controversial directive when it announced the adoption of an English-only policy for nearly all of its services and operations. This marks a significant change from prior practices under multiple administrations to serve the public in more than 200 languages — and it reportedly stems from President Donald Trump’s executive order that makes English the official U.S. language.
In a memo, HUD deputy secretary Andrew Hughes explained that “all HUD communications, correspondence, and physical and digital materials will be produced exclusively in English, and we will no longer offer non-English translation services.”
The policy change has sparked a backlash from some in the housing industry. Real estate coach Darryl Davis recently penned an op-ed for HousingWire in which he slammed the Trump administration for creating a “bureaucratic muzzle that makes it considerably harder for non-English-speaking Americans to access one of the most basic human needs — a place to live.”
While the policy pertains to HUD offices and government-funded facilities, Opperman indicated that private nonprofits like Credit.org are not impacted. The company has not received any relevant changes to the HUD Housing Counseling Handbook, she said, and it will continue to offer HECM counseling sessions in many languages.
“We can continue to do that as a counseling agency,” she explained. “And I would say, right now, about one in five of our HECM sessions are in Spanish — about 20% in a given month.”
Opperman noted that Credit.org has a translation service that can serve clients in roughly 200 languages. Participants only need to schedule an appointment ahead of time so that an interpreter can be part of the meeting.
“We also encourage all clients that we counsel — whether it’s in an English language or non-English language — they are more than welcome and encouraged to have family members on the call with them,” Opperman said. “And that’s also why the telephone counseling is so helpful, because sometimes their adult child lives out of state.”
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