Richelle
Hopkins
of


Mutual
of
Omaha
Mortgage
has
been
a
reverse
mortgage
professional
for
20
years,
moving
to
Arizona
in
2006.
In
2020,
a
colleague
approached
her
about
establishing
a
Phoenix-based
chapter
of

Women
in
Insurance
and
Financial
Services
(WIFS),
an
association
of
financial
services
professionals
who
aim
to
“attract,
develop
and
advance
women
in
an
underrepresented
profession,”
according
to
the
WIFS
National

website.

At
a
recent
WIFS
Phoenix
event,
Hopkins
was
able
to
bring
a
discussion
about
reverse
mortgages
to
attendees
and
sat
down
with

HousingWire’s
Reverse
Mortgage
Daily
(RMD)
to
share
details
about
the
experience.

WIFS
Phoenix,
a
housing
wealth
event

Hopkins’
involvement
in
the
organization’s
Phoenix
chapter
has
involved
leadership
positions,
including
president.
One
element
of
WIFS
that
she
highlights
is
that
despite
her
involvement
in
an
industry
that
often
has

reputational
challenges,
Hopkins
says
that
other
WIFS
members
have
both
embraced
and
supported
her.

“It’s
been
very
endearing
to
my
heart
that
I’ve
been
embraced,
especially
when
I
might
typically
be
the
outsider,”
she
said.
“To
have
that
embrace
within
WIFS
where
they
recognize
that
I
truly
am
a
person
that
specializes
in
a
financial
product
aims
to
help
borrowers
meet
their
overall
financial
goals
out
there,
it’s
been
gratifying
to
see
how
very
supportive
they’ve
been.”

Hopkins
and
her
colleague
Sue
Karaja
were
instrumental
in
the
development
of
the
Phoenix
chapter,
and
Hopkins
herself
was
eventually
elevated
to
the
role
of
its
president
upon
urging
from
Karaja
when
her
own
term
was
coming
up.
At
that
point
when
she
was
preparing
to
take
the
reins
of
the
chapter,
she
was
advised
that
holding
a
reverse
mortgage-related
event
would
be
on
the
table.

She
was
instead
focused
on
serving
her
year
as
president,
but
when
her
own
term
came
up,
Hopkins
said
that
the
time
was
right
to
dive
into
some
kind
of
reverse
programming.
But
Hopkins
saw
an
opportunity
to
do
something
larger,
while
including
reverse
mortgages
in
the
conversation.

“I
told
them
that
I
didn’t
want
this
to
be
just
about
reverse
mortgage,”
she
said.
“There
are
so
many
more
conversations
about

housing
wealth
out
there,
I
want
to
choose
housing
wealth
as
the
theme
and
showcase
members
and
how
their
financial
or
insurance
products
can
service
this
wealth-builder
that
is
housing.”

Building
the
event

To
pull
off
the
vision,
the
organization
needed
event
sponsors.
Hopkins
took
it
upon
herself
to
appeal
to
organizations
to
provide
sponsorship
money,
and
instead
of
going
to
larger
firms
she
instead
wanted
to
focus
her
efforts
on
firms
vested
in
the
program
material.

The
event
had
three
segments:
“creating,”
“leveraging”
and
“securing”
wealth
through
home
equity.
The
reverse
mortgage
material
would
be
loaded
into
the
“leveraging”
segment,
Hopkins
explained.

By
pairing
the
pursuit
of
speakers
with
sponsorships
and
getting
speakers
themselves
to
help
sponsor
the
event,
Hopkins
and
WIFS
Phoenix
had
found
a
way
to
build
out
the
roster
of
speakers
and
secure
the
necessary
sponsorship
dollars
to
hold
the
event.

The
event,
which
took
place
on
Aug.
22,
lined
up
a
series
of
12
speakers
and
sponsors
including
Mutual
of
Omaha
and


Fairway
Independent
Mortgage
Corp.
With
tickets
selling
out
roughly
one
week
prior
to
the
date,
the
programming
came
together.
Over
a
three-hour
period,
each
of
the
three
sections
was
covered
including
the
“securing
your
wealth”
segment,
where
Hopkins
was
able
to
discuss
the

Home
Equity
Conversion
Mortgage
(HECM)
program.

“I
was
able
to
highlight
HECMs
and
reverse
mortgages,”
she
said.
“I
took
on
that
segment
with
an
SRES-designated
real
estate
agent.
Prior
to
my
presentation,
she
spoke
about
the
buyer
demographic.
My
business
has
thrived
off
HECM
for
Purchase
in
the
Phoenix
market,
and
I
embraced
that
version
of
the
HECM
years
ago,”
she
explained.

Echoing
some
of
what
other
lenders
have
said
about
the

increasingly-emerging
opportunity
presented
by
HECM
for
Purchase,
Hopkins
was
able
to
speak
with
authority
since
those
loans
make
up
a
majority
of
her
pipeline.

“My
pipeline
right
now
is
probably
about
75%
purchase,
so
I
have
created
amazing
relationships
with
real
estate
agents
out
here
in
the
Phoenix
metro
market.
This
SRES
agent
was
one
of
them,”
she
said.
“She
was
able
to
talk
about
the
buyer
demographic
and
how
they
are
the
largest
demographic
of
buyers
out
there,
which
would
segue
into
leveraging
housing
wealth.”

Response
to
reverse
mortgages

Hopkins
said
she
was
gratified
about
the
response
that
the
attendees
had
to
learning
more
about
reverse
mortgages.

“I
had
two
conversations
right
out
in
the
lobby,”
she
said.
“There
was
a
lady
about
my
age,
and
she’s
told
me,
‘Look,
my
mom
has
all
this
home
equity.
What
can
we
do
with
this?’
So
it
started
to
spark
questions
like,
‘Hey,
let’s
have
coffee.’”

Each
speaker
only
had
roughly
10
minutes
of
time
on
the
stage,
so
Hopkins
had
to
make
the
most
of
what
she
wanted
to
say
in
alignment
with
the
event’s
themes.

“I
kicked
off
my
leveraging
piece
by
really
going
into
a
very
basic
Google
definition
of
leveraging
—
it’s
taking
one
thing
and
exchanging
it
for
something
greater
or
something
new,”
she
said.
“I
then
took
them
to
the
retirement
side,
describing
how
they’ve
built
up
all
this
wealth
in
the
home.
That
money
is
underground.
I
asked,
‘how
are
you
going
to
leverage
this
for
something
new
or
better
in
retirement?’”

The
impact
was
felt
quickly,
she
said.
Attendees
asked
if
this
could
be
an
annual
occurrence,
which
she
indicated
could
be
possible
if
a
future
board
wants
to
pursue
it.
But
she
also
took
away
from
multiple
conversations
that
attendees
had
an
“a-ha”
moment
about
reverse
mortgages.

“It
wasn’t
necessarily
a
B2B
audience;
it
wasn’t
business-to-business
professionals.
There
were
clients,
and
we
had
others
who
invited
their
adult
children
in,
because
housing
wealth
covers
such
a
large
demographic,
from
first-time
homebuyers
to
retirees,”
she
said.

When
asked
if
there
would
be
a
reverse
mortgage
presence
at
a
future
event,
Hopkins
said
that
would
“absolutely”
be
the
case.

“My
thought
is
that
there
can
always
be
content
around
the
theme
of
housing
wealth,
bringing
us
all
up
to
speed
on
what
the
previous
year
has
looked
like,
what’s
coming
up
in
the
future,
what
to
expect,
and
the
strategies
for
reverse
mortgages,”
she
said.
“There
are
so
many
ways
to
help
people
achieve
their
retirement
goals
with
this
—
partnering
with
divorce
attorneys,
home
builders,
real
estate
agents,
financial
advisors,
and
insurance
agents.
There
are
so
many
different
ways
that
I
could
take
the
HECM,
the
reverse
mortgage,
and
explore
any
of
those
conversations.”

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