Genworth Financial Home Equity Access has acquired the reverse mortgage websites of Premium Reverse Leads, a lead company based in Chicago, IL.
RMD has been aware that the two companies were discussing a deal for quite some time, but it’s clear the acquisition recently closed after seeing the domain ownership was transferred to Genworth late last week.
Premium Reverse Leads was founded by Darrin Nix, who also owned Equitable Reverse, a reverse mortgage lender that he decided to shut down earlier this year. Nix recently enrolled in the MBA program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but has been retained as a contractor to help transition the day to day activities.
As part of the deal, Genworth now owns − ReverseMortgageGuides.org and Reverse.org − two of the most popular websites consumers use to find information about reverse mortgages. In 2008, Nix said the company was spending $100,000/month on Google Adwords − a significant amount for a small operation − to drive traffic to the sites and Genworth has the resources to continue and even expand their reach.
When contacted about the acquisition, Pete Engelken, President of Genworth’s reverse mortgage division said it will use the sites to “educate more consumers about the reverse mortgage product, as well as generate additional leads for the industry’s key players.”
Much like Reverseit, a division of Urban Financial, the company plans to offer high quality, low cost leads to select wholesale partners starting in 2011. Expect an official announcement from Genworth early this week.
