Longbridge partners with Friday Harbor on AI pre-underwriting

Reverse mortgage lender Longbridge Financial is partnering with mortgage technology firm Friday Harbor to implement an artificial intelligence-powered pre-underwriting platform aimed at identifying issues earlier in the origination process.

In an interview with HousingWire‘s Reverse Mortgage Daily (RMD), executives from both companies described the arrangement as a strategic partnership focused on modernizing reverse mortgage workflows while maintaining human oversight throughout the lending process.

“We’re really looking to bring significant modernization to the whole space in terms of how we think about interacting with our clients and consumers to really speed up the process, modernize the process, while at the same time really keeping that human in the loop,” said Bill Packer, chief operating officer of Longbridge.

The platform is designed to review borrower documentation and identify potential issues, missing information and underwriting conditions before a loan reaches the formal underwriting stage. Packer said the goal is to avoid late-stage surprises that can delay closings and frustrate borrowers.

“Nobody appreciates when they’re five days before closing, and suddenly we discover an issue that we’ve known about for 45 days,” Packer said.

He framed the collaboration as the next step in the company’s multiyear push to modernize reverse mortgage and home equity line of credit (HELOC) workflows. This follows Longbridge’s prior technology initiatives, including Bridget AI, an AI-powered underwriting assistant.

Friday Harbor’s AI system can analyze loan documents and compare them against lending guidelines in a way that helps staff identify potential concerns earlier in the process. Rather than replacing underwriters, the technology is intended to support processors, underwriters and originators by surfacing issues upfront.

Theo Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Friday Harbor, told RMD that the broader consumer benefit is often overlooked in conversations about AI adoption in mortgage lending.

“Everyone has that story about getting asked for a document or explanation at the last minute,” Ellis said. “If you can use AI to catch these things upfront, you create a much better borrower experience.”

Executives said reverse mortgages present unique operational challenges because the sector lacks some of the automated underwriting infrastructure available in the forward mortgage market, including tools such as Fannie Mae‘s Desktop Underwriter (DU) and Freddie Mac‘s Loan Product Advisor (LPA).

“In the reverse space, we don’t have any of those tools,” Packer said. “There’s really newfound opportunities to bring significant changes to that transaction in a way that’s never been done before.”

Ellis said adapting Friday Harbor’s technology for reverse mortgages required reworking the existing framework. “A lot of that had to be built from the ground up, which was a challenge we were excited to take on,” he said.

The technology is not currently consumer-facing and will initially be used internally by Longbridge staff during the pre-underwriting phase. Packer, who framed the partnership as an indefinite “journey” with different levels of interaction with the AI, said the company expects significant human oversight during the early stages of implementation while employees evaluate the system’s performance.

Packer said Longbridge was drawn to Friday Harbor after hearing repeated endorsements from mortgage technology leaders through industry groups and conferences.

The partnership — officially inked in March — marks Friday Harbor’s first move into the reverse mortgage space, although the executives said they have been discussing a potential collaboration for several years.

The companies said they view the initiative as part of a broader effort to modernize the reverse mortgage process for older borrowers facing growing financial pressures from rising property taxes, insurance costs and other housing-related expenses.

“Older American homeowners deserve a process that should be faster, clearer and more consistent,” Packer said.