Trust & Will CEO: Housing pros should prep for ‘historic’ wealth transfer wave

Housing and mortgage professionals should prepare for a coming wave of intergenerational wealth transfers driven largely by real estate assets, according to Cody Barbo, co-founder and CEO of Trust & Will.

Speaking with HousingWire CEO Clayton Collins at The Gathering in Austin this week, Barbo said the next two decades are expected to bring an estimated $124 trillion in wealth transfers, with much of that wealth tied to housing assets. He argued that mortgage lenders, servicers and real estate agents have an opportunity to strengthen long-term customer relationships by helping clients navigate estate planning.

“We’ve just failed as a country on financial literacy and estate planning,” Barbo said during the session.

Trust & Will, which Barbo described as “TurboTax for estate planning,” offers online wills and trusts in all 50 states. The company says it has helped more than 1 million families create estate plans through its digital platform.

Barbo said the company was predicated in part by his own experience after his wife’s father died without a trust in place. The family spent roughly two years navigating probate before they could sell his Texas home.

“Even if it’s called out in a will, the will still goes through probate,” Barbo said. “It just creates a really uncomfortable time and a lot of friction for loved ones.”

The discussion focused heavily on the role housing professionals can play as trusted advisers beyond the initial transaction. Collins said lenders and agents increasingly aim to become “clients for life” businesses by maintaining relationships with homeowners long after a purchase closes.

Barbo said top-performing agents often build relationships with entire families, not just the homebuyer, positioning themselves to assist during future property transfers or inheritance situations.

“The power of an agent’s relationship with the family, if they make the investment and continue that relationship post-transaction, can really be meaningful,” he said.

Barbo also pointed to demographic trends that could reshape servicing portfolios and customer retention strategies, citing the roughly 3.5 million deaths per year in the U.S. Barbo projected that number could rise significantly over the next decade as baby boomers age, putting wealth transfers front and center.

He urged lenders and servicers to examine how much business is lost when borrowers die, and whether firms have relationships with heirs who inherit homes or other assets.

Barbo also touched on the company’s partnerships with banks, financial advisers and insurance firms. He cited Fifth Third Bank as an example, saying the bank offers free wills to retail banking customers as part of its customer retention strategy.

According to Barbo, the program has also helped banks identify broader customer wealth holdings, including second homes and investment properties that were previously unknown to the institution.

Today, estate planning documents still generally require paper signatures and notarization in many states, although Barbo said fully digital estate planning is expanding and could become more common over the next several years.

The ultimate goal, he said, is to create a continuously updated digital platform that reflects life events such as marriage, children, divorce or illness, rather than static documents that often go untouched for decades.

“The power that you can have doing it for yourself, but what you can do for your customers, empowering them with education, call to action and an incentive, is incredible,” Barbo said.