Robert Klein on reverse mortgage education, retirement planning

Today’s HousingWire Daily features a crossover episode with the RMD Podcast, a monthly podcast covering hot topics in the reverse mortgage industry hosted by Chris Clow, editor at HW Media’s latest acquisition, Reverse Mortgage Daily. The episode features an interview with Robert Klein, founder of the Retirement Income Center and an investment advisor in Newport Beach.

During the episode, Klein dives into the importance of reverse mortgage production education and addresses some of the reservations that financial planners may have when talking to their clients about reverse mortgages. He also shares some advice to reverse mortgage originators about partnering with financial planners. 

Here is a small preview of the interview, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Chris Clow: What do you make of the attitudes of other financial planners regarding reverse mortgages, particularly when it comes to the barriers they think exist from broker dealers and separately to those who just generally have a negative attitude about them?

Robert Klein: To me, it’s nothing new. It’s comparable and analogous to financial advisors, a lot of them, and their attitudes towards fixed income annuities. It comes down in a lot of cases to lack of education, that’s the basic thing about whether it’s fixed income annuities or reverse mortgages. […] You only have so much time in the day, and people like to focus on certain things. However, having said that, a lot of the focus is client-driven, and so to the extent that clients are coming into your office, and they’re talking about this more and more now, it behooves financial advisors to get up to speed on [reverse mortgages] and expand their horizons.

HousingWire Daily examines the most compelling articles reported across HW Media. Each afternoon, we provide our listeners with a deeper look into the stories coming across our newsrooms that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted by the HW team and produced by Alcynna Lloyd and Elissa Branch.