About Reverse Mortgages and Why I Don’t Recommend Them

What is a reverse mortgage? It is a financial product that allows you to tap the equity from your home. Millionacres says, You can qualify for a reverse mortgage as long as you’re at least 62, use the home in question as your primary residence, and are able and willing to keep up with your homeownership costs — meaning, continue paying your property taxes, retain homeowners insurance, and maintain your property.

As the articles below show, there are a lot of reasons NOT to get a reverse mortgage.

Since I live in New York, property taxes are a big concern. If you don’t pay your property taxes, your reverse mortgage becomes immediately due. Since there is not legislation protecting the homeowners, a town can reassess property values and your taxes can go up by 50% or more suddenly. Yes, they can. If you don’t pay your property taxes, your reverse mortgage becomes immediately due. If you can’t keep up with taxes, insurance, or maintenance, you are looking at foreclosure.



From Experian

But a reverse mortgage comes with several downsides, such as upfront and ongoing costs, a variable interest rate, an ever-rising loan balance and a reduction in home equity. In light of those drawbacks, homeowners considering a reverse mortgage should weigh the alternatives, such as refinancing an existing mortgage or taking out a home equity loan.

Explore All Your Options

On its surface, a reverse mortgage might sound like an ideal way to use your home for income. However, both upfront and ongoing costs accompany a reverse mortgage, along with a variable interest rate. Another pitfall: Because interest and fees are tacked on to the loan balance each month, the balance increases—and as the balance goes up, your home equity goes down.

Because of the numerous downsides to reverse mortgages, be sure to explore all of your borrowing alternatives to ensure your finances don’t end up going in reverse.

Everything Finance One of the ways lenders try to entice you into a reverse mortgage is by putting the idea in your head that you’ll never lose your home and ultimately live there forever. However, depending on your retirement income, even with the money from your reverse mortgage, the home insurance, repairs, and property taxes could become too much for you to handle.
Should you fail to be able to pay for any of those expenses, you’ll be in severe risk of losing your home. Moreover, there’s no telling how much repairs will (sic) ultimately equal.

Investopedia You Might Move Soon

If you’re contemplating moving for health concerns or other reasons, a reverse mortgage is probably unwise because in the short-run, steep up-front costs make such loans economically impractical. These costs include lender fees, initial mortgage insurance costs, ongoing mortgage insurance premiums, and closing (a.k.a. settlement) costs, such as property title insurance, home appraisal fees, and inspection fees.

Homeowners who suddenly vacate or sell the property have just six months to repay the loan. And while borrowers may pocket any sales proceeds above the balance owed on the loan, thousands of dollars in reverse mortgage costs will have already been paid out.

Youtube: Dave Ramsey says Reverse Mortgages Are Scams.  

2017: 90,000 mortgages held by seniors are facing involuntary termination of their mortgages, i.e. foreclosure!  At that time, 14%- 18% of the loans ended in foreclosure- a really, really, really high foreclosure rate.

Once in 30 Years From Elizabeth

“Jane” wanted to get a reverse mortgage.  Her house was paid for. She wanted to remain in her house for the remainder of her life and have money to pay for her care, and she had no heirs. Also, she had recently been given less than a year to live. At that point, I could not talk “Jane” out of a reverse mortgage. There are other options, but she wanted what she wanted.

However, my advice for you: Run away from a reverse mortgage!  Elizabeth Estelle

Homeschool Christian Mom Elizabeth Estelle is ready to help you!

Let’s connect:

Transition to Retirement: What You Should Know

Cathy Lawdanski graciously invited me to guest post on her Blog, My Side of 50. The following post first appeared on My Side of 50,” June 26, 2018. You can read the original article here.


We recently made the transition to retirement. My husband retired last year on July 1, 2017. He had worked for 31 years for our local school system and he was ready to be out and to work on his own projects. When you’ve set your actual retirement date, you go into a stage I call “Meetings”.  And since we agree with the proverb: two heads are better than one, we attended these meetings together. Continue reading “Transition to Retirement: What You Should Know”