Bank of America Positions Home Equity and Reverse Mortgages For Future Growth.

With the housing market being projected to turn around in 4th quarter of 2009, Bank of America is getting ready.

In today's turbulent economic environment, Bank of America's nearly $200 billion Home Equity and Reverse Mortgage business is positioning itself for future growth. Strategies include focusing on loss mitigation activities that will re-align the portfolio to meet the present and future challenges while developing a new product and pricing model that will pave the way for future profitability.

With a dual focus on generating profitable revenue and further accelerating loss avoidance, while positioning Bank of America for future industry turn around, Home Equity and Reverse Mortgage associates are working on multiple fronts to help customers realize their financial goals.

Home Equity and Reverse Mortgage executive, Henry Fulton, said "Despite all that's on our plate, our focus on the customer remains clear. The vision for the Home Equity and Reverse Mortgage business is to be America's #1 most admired and trusted home equity lender by offering solutions to our customers that enable them to responsibly access their homeowner equity."

Customers continue to suffer from record setting declines in home values, along with income loss due to rising unemployment levels. Home Equity has developed transformative efforts focused on maximizing the reach of loss mitigation activities while simultaneously ensuring their effectiveness and efficiency.

Teams of home equity associates are using creative and efficient means to provide customers with the right solutions at the right time, whether that includes shared appreciation opportunities or loan modifications. The goal is to reduce risk and deliver solutions to as many customers as possible. For the most at risk accounts, Home Equity is reducing or blocking home equity lines of credit in order to preserve shareholder value and help the customer avoid future delinquency.

In working through the current environment, Home Equity has developed a sales and origination strategy focused on the segmentation of the most attractive market opportunities, including mass affluent and small business owners. The mass affluent segment is particularly attractive for home equity origination opportunities, with its large base of existing Bank of America relationships, higher income and increased utilization patterns.

"When home prices stabilize and consumers regain financial confidence, home equity borrowing will regain prominence as a prudent financial tool for consumers with appropriate equity and credit quality, Futton said. "Earnings from Bank of America's industry leading portfolio will stabilize, then begin to grow as new originations at higher margins gradually replace historical balances and losses decline."

I have taken an interest in the next trend in lending...Reverse Mortgages. And Bank of America's growing sector in this market shows consumers, specifically seniors, are too.

In approximately two short years, Bank of America has emerged as a leading reverse mortgage provider, with a balanced growth strategy split nearly evenly between a retail sales force focused solely on meeting with financial needs of America's seniors and a strong wholesale channel where trusted business to business partners are attracted to Bank of America's values and financial strength and stability.

"The vision for Bank of America's reverse mortgage business is to be America's #1 most admired and trusted reverse mortgage lender by offering solutions to our customers while delivering an exquisite customer experience," said Bank of America Reverse Mortgage executive, D. Steve Boland, "We fully understand sensitivities and responsibilities inherent in advising seniors who are looking for the right financial tool to help them achieve some level of financial comfort."

Despite the continuing decline in home values, the expansion opportunities remain strong for the reverse mortgage industry, where senors maintain $4 trillion of the existing $11 trillion on home values. More seniors are becoming attracted to reverse mortgages as a means to utilize that equity for increased financial security. This is especially important since other retirement resources are impacted by the economic, turmoil. The market is also being bolstered by increases in loan limits from government insured home equity conversion mortgages, or HECM's.

"While we wait for a private secondary market to return and enable us to grow our proprietary value proposition, we are focused on growing our HECM business by leveraging the strength and security of the Bank of America brand to benefit seniors," Boland said.