Live Well Financial has ceased originating loans, the company announced on its website Friday. The homepage message said only that it would not be originating new loans as of May 3, 2019, “due to unexpected circumstances,” a surprise move that took some wholesale partners by surprise.
Live Well Financial originated traditional and reverse mortgage loans as well as FHA and VA loans. It also operates a servicing arm. No word yet on whether the company will continue to service loans or if it will sell off that business and close completely.
Virginia-based Live Well is a long-time player in the reverse mortgage space, most recently coming in at No. 7 with 305 loans year to date and 3.1% market share.
It is also an issuer of reverse mortgage securities, coming in No. 7 in the first quarter of 2019 with 22 pools of HECM-backed securities with an original aggregate amount of $85.6 million. But late last year, the company sold off a sizable portion of its portfolio to Reverse Mortgage Funding in what was perhaps a sign of things to come.
In September, Executive Vice President Bruce Barnes told HousingWire that the lender was on the brink of releasing a major upgrade to its lending platform, promising an elevated experience for both its customers and originators.
Barnes said the new focus on technology and mortgage automation was a bid to retain market share as business in both forward and reverse mortgages was down. But the technology never officially launched, and it appears the lender may have buckled under the pressure.
HousingWire reached out to several Live Well executives for comment but had not heard back as of press time.
