Reverse Mortgages By The Numbers

We have always felt that Reverse Mortgages were another type of gambling with the future. Especially when the homeowner is young, well young for taking the RM, say in their 60s. Who knows what the future will hold and how long they will live. Through the RM program we are encouraging seniors to take all their savings now and pay a hefty price for doing it. Sure it will be great if their short term needs are met or they live even better than before, but what is the cost. Finally we found someone who ran some of the numbers in this article from The Northern Star titled Reverse Mortgages Come With Danger. Yes this is from an Australian paper, it appears not many in the US actually acknowledge the problems with reverse mortgages. Let's take a look -

The idea behind reverse mortgages is that older homeowners can cash out part of their home's value, with the funds received either as a lump sum, a series of cash payments or a combination of both. The money can be spent however the homeowner chooses, be it to buy a new car, take a holiday or simply meet living expenses.

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A strong point of appeal with reverse mortgages is that no repayments are required until you sell the property or die. However, interest is charged from day one, so it doesn't take very long for the overall debt to escalate, potentially outpacing the increase in your home's value.

To see just how quickly the debt can snowball, let's say that a retiree aged 65 takes out a reverse mortgage, receiving an initial lump sum of $50,000 at the start of the loan, with a further $500 a month paid for the first five years. By the time the homeowner is in his or her mid-80s, the debt plus interest will have grown to $400,000.

The mounting debt may alarm family members, but it should also concern our homeowner.

That is because around 50pc of both men and women currently aged 65 have a 50pc chance of living to their mid-80s.

What is going to happen to the 80 year olds with no equity left? Their savings depleted so they can buy their grandchildren ice creams? Which is what some are suggesting -

Meg Burns, director of the FHA's office of single-family program development, said she's heard only positive feedback.

“One of the things you hear all the time is how this program made a really big difference in their lifestyle, just in little things, like now they can take their grandchildren to get ice cream,” Burns said.

How great will that work out in the end? Sure it feels good now but if it costing seniors their savings and really costing about double due to all the fees and interest how good will that really taste?

We are also wondering about the clause to keep up the property. How is the homeowner going to keep up the property in their 80s when they have no equity for maintenance? And how are we going to evict people whose houses are in disrepair but their Reverse Mortgage requires the house and property to be maintained? If these are not maintained properly the value will decline. The problem is already messy, and the strong push for Reverse Mortgages will make things even messier.