GoodLife’s Chase Kinder on growing his company’s reverse mortgage presence

Last week, Traditional Mortgage Acceptance Corp. (TMAC), dba GoodLife Home Loans, announced a leadership change when it promoted Chase Kinder to lead its wholesale division.

GoodLife is the country’s fourth-largest originator of Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs), according to the most recent industry data from Reverse Market Insight. The company endorsed 1,344 HECM loans during the year ending in July 2025. And on a year-to-date basis, GoodLife is the nation’s fastest-growing HECM lender among the top 10 players — upping its volume by 66% while increasing its market share from 3.4% to 5.2%.

Kinder, who joined GoodLife in late 2023 and previously served in its wholesale division as a senior account executive, spoke with HousingWire’s Reverse Mortgage Daily earlier this week about his priorities in the new role. He said the company is looking to grow its presence and eventually challenge Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, Finance of America and Longbridge Financial at the top of the industry leaderboard.

“We are working on expanding our wholesale and retail presence, which I think will essentially capture the market share that we’re going to need to be at spot one, two or three, so to speak,” Kinder said. “Expanding retail, expanding wholesale, and just continue to offer good service to partners, good pricing, I think that will lead in itself to capturing more market share as we go on.”

In May, GoodLife launched a retail division led by Linda Weilert and Catalina Gonzalez, who previously served in the reverse division at Open Mortgage. Along with loan officers Marilyn Brown Ross and Chris Weilert, the four collectively possess more than 40 years of reverse-specific experience.

While other leading reverse companies have explicit broker protection plans in place, Kinder said that GoodLife hasn’t needed one simply because of the size of its retail shop.

“Our retail team is very small compared to some of the bigger lenders, where they have a massive retail operation could work essentially as a servicing retention department. We don’t have that at TMAC,” he said.

“[Broker protection] has come up in conversations, but we don’t have the capacity to go after existing clients, or maybe somebody whose loan we’re servicing, compared to some of the other folks. So it’s like we have broker protection without essentially having it or putting it out there publicly.”

Proprietary products have become a hot topic across the reverse mortgage industry in the past year. GoodLife has its own proprietary product under the Meridian brand, with loan sizes up to $4 million.

Kinder said the company is seeking to expand these options in the “near future” due to perceived demand. Prospective borrowers under the age of 62 may want them as an alternative to a HECM, or because rising home prices in certain regions may push their borrowing capacity past the current HECM limit of $1,209,750.

“We do see a need for additional proprietary products in the space,” Kinder said. “They are good loans with great investors. The only real cons of those, sometimes the interest rates could be a little bit higher. But they do accommodate some higher loan amounts.”

He also touched on a growing senior population with a variety of needs, from aging-in-place renovations and debt consolidation goals to simply creating a more secure retirement.

“I don’t think this product is going anywhere anytime soon,” Kinder said. “And I think some of the revisions that FHA made to this product with the financial assessment has really made it a lot safer for seniors over the years.

“I think that demand is going to continue to increase. As long as we’re positioned to handle that volume with staffing, with some different products, I think we’ll place ourselves in a good position.”