Thursday, March 19, 2020 / by Vanessa Saunders
By Vanessa Saunders, MBA, MIMC , Broker Owner, Global Property Systems
We have written before about the hazards elderly homeowners face when taking out reverse mortgages. A reverse mortgage is actually a loan you take out against your home. You must be 62 or older to qualify, and the amount you borrow is determined by your age, the interest rate and the value of your home.
Homeowners often forget that they still have to pay homeowners insurance, property taxes, and keep the home in good repair. Also, the upfront fees on a reverse mortgage can be quite high, so if borrowers don’t plan on staying in the home for a long time, a good bit of the home equity will go to fees, with very little benefit to the borrower.
One of the tragic things that often comes up is if one spouse is not listed as a borrower on the reverse mortgage. When the borrowing spouse dies before the other, the surviving spouse may be forced from the home to repay the reverse mortgage. It’s sad to see eld. ...
Read More
hudson valley real estate, hudson valley property, hudson valley home, hudson valley home owners, 'urb to 'burb, retirement, real estate scams, reverse mortgages
Tuesday, July 2, 2019 / by Vanessa Saunders
Today's edition of the Journal News, a regional newspaper partnered with USA Today, featured a front page article about reverse mortgages. Using analysis from USA Today, the article shows how several lenders focused their reverse mortgage origination activities on largely black neighborhoods in big cities around the nation. The resulting wave of foreclosures triggered by reverse mortgages has been a crushing blow to the finances of families and relatives of the former-homeowners.
It’s hard to miss former movie stars touting the advantages of taking out a reverse mortgage, and many an elderly senior has been taken in by their seeming trustworthiness and honest demeanor. The appeal of staying put in their own familiar home, vs the upsetting prospect of moving is a large carrot to dangle in front of an insecure senior.
In the past 12 months I have experienced some terrible situations brought about by the reverse mortgage scenario, yet even when I outline the dr. ...
Read More
hudson valley real estate, hudson valley property, hudson valley home, home investment, hudson valley home sellers, housing sales, selling your home, hudson valley house, retirement, downsizing, reverse mortgages
Monday, September 24, 2018 / by Vanessa Saunders
It's hard to miss former movie stars touting the advantages of taking out a reverse mortgage, and many an elderly senior has been taken in by their seeming trustworthiness and honest demeanor. The appeal of staying put in their own familiar home, vs the upsetting prospect of moving is a large carrot to dangle in front of an insecure senior.
In the past 12 months I have experienced some terrible situations bought about by the reverse mortgage scenario, yet even when I outline the drawbacks, many seniors are still drawn in by what they think is a great alternative to the fear of change. While reverse mortgages can be a useful retirement alternative for some to boost income, eliminate debt or buy a home, there are some potential downsides.
What really is a reverse mortgage?
A reverse mortgage is actually a loan you take out against your home. You must be 62 or older to take on out, and the amount you borrow is determined by your age, the interest rate and the value of your home. ...
Read More
hudson valley real estate, hudson valley property, hudson valley home, hudson valley home owners, selling your home, retirement, reverse mortgages
Monday, February 5, 2018 / by Vanessa Saunders
We've all see the TV commercials for reverse mortgages - an old and trusted movie star touts a revolutionary new way for seniors to stay in their home and live off the equity they've built up over the years, FREE! It sounds great, but supposedly secure homeowners are being foreclosed on at an alarmingly increasing rate.
The California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC), reported that foreclosures on reverse loans soared by 646 percent in 2016. CRC is a network of 300 nonprofit groups in California working on issues of housing fairness and access. It obtained data in 2017 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through a Freedom of Information Act request on the agency’s home equity conversion mortgage (HECM) program.
Reverse mortgages offer homeowners age 62 years and older a way to generate cash by borrowing against their home equity, with funds drawn as a fixed monthly payment or line of credit. Unlike a standard home equity line of credit, no repaymen. ...
Read More
hudson valley real estate, retirement, reverse mortgages
