Tag: Retirement planning

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And the WINNER for Most Embarrassing Is…

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story
What would be the most embarrassing thing for you to admit? Your weight? Your age? Your bank balance?
For most Americans, it’s none of these. It’s their credit score.

According to a new poll conducted by National Foundation for Credit Counseling, 37% of respondents nationwide indicate the element of their life they would least like divulged is their credit score. Next on the list of embarrassing secrets? Credit card debt.

That these two go together really shouldn’t come as any surprise, as they are often closely linked.

How Credit Scores Work

Credit card debt is one of the most highly-weighted factors in credit scores, and it works like this: think of a jar. That jar represents the limit on your credit card. When the jar is full, you have hit the max on your card. You have filled your jar with debt – and that’s not good. In fact, if your jar is more than 30% full of debt, you will start to see it significantly impact your credit score. And no one needs to tell you it’s hard to dig out from under credit card debt.

Good Advice Gone Bad

Many seniors have credit card debt. There’s no question about that. And many seniors are having a hard time managing that debt – there’s no question about that, either.

But here’s the place I think a lot of financial advice gets wacky – almost mean. When you ask seniors how they accrued so much debt, the answers rarely include lavish expenditures, exotic travel, or irresponsible habits. Rather, most tell stories of illness, unexpected home or auto repairs, or assistance to distressed family members. Often I work with leading-edge boomers taking care of advanced-elderly parents, causing a double draw-down on retirement savings. To preach a gospel of austerity to a widow struggling to pay off her husband’s final illness goes beyond uninformed thoughtlessness; this is rank insensitivity bordering on cruelty.

What are the Options?

In retirement, options often become limited by health, skill set, and available employment. Selling the home and moving in with family is indeed an option, and for some it is a good option. Selling the home and renting is not currently a good option for many, as rents are at historic highs. “Forward,” or traditional, lines of credit can, in certain cases, make sense. However, with a forward line of credit, the homeowner acquires yet another monthly payment, which renders the loan of dubious assistance.

For many, the way forward is going to include a many-faceted solution set, including a reverse mortgage. With a reverse mortgage, one of the potential options includes a line of credit that can be drawn against in emergencies, and which does not require a monthly repayment. The debt is repaid when the last person on title to the home permanently leaves the home.

No one is going to get by on just their Social Security. No one is going to make it on their 401-K. Few are going to survive on their pension, their annuity, their IRA, their bank account – or their reverse mortgage. But when added together, all these combine to create a long-term means of maintaining dignity and independence in retirement.

If you would like to explore how an FHA reverse mortgage might help with your retirement plans, give me a call. I always love hearing from you.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton is a freelance writer and a Reverse Mortgage Consultant at Middleburg Mortgage. She can be reached at: 703-477-1183 Direct or Laurie@MiddleburgReverse.com

 

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS# 506562] ∙ Reverse Mortgage Consultant, President’s Club ∙ Middleburg Mortgage ∙ 8190 Stonewall Shops Square ∙ Gainesville, VA 20155 ∙ 703-477-1183 Direct ∙ Laurie@MiddleburgReverse.com∙ www.MiddleburgReverseLady.com

 

 

Never Read the Comments

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story, Retirement Planning, Reverse Mortgage

A good friend of mine, a professional writer and one of the smartest people I know, once said to me. “Never read the comments at the end of an article – you’ll end up loathing humanity.”

I don’t know why I do it, but I persist in ignoring his advice. And while I can’t say I end up hating humanity, I confess I often end up just this side of appalled at the flawed reasoning, the foul language, and the venomous attacks commenters level against other commenters.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the tables were turned this week after The New York Times ran a piece on reverse mortgage: the article was terrible, but the comments were extraordinary.

The piece, entitled “Pitfalls of Reverse Mortgages May Pass to Borrower’s Heirs,” struck me as a remarkable specimen self-pity, greed, and lack of self-reflection on the part of adult children whose parents had reverse mortgages, and (yet another) instance of poorly-researched reporting by Jessica Silver-Greenberg, who has written other sensationalistic reverse mortgage pieces for NYT.

Then, in an act of self-punishment – you guessed it – I clicked on the comments tab.

The word “astonished” comes to mind.

First of all, at the time of this blogpost there were 598 comments. I read a lot of online news, and that is an unusually high number of people weighing in on a financial piece.

Second, despite the negative nature of the article, the overwhelming majority of comments were highly supportive of reverse mortgage.

But my third and biggest source of amazement? The level-headed, well-reasoned nature of the replies, some from seniors themselves, but many more from adult children of parents who have taken out a reverse mortgage.

A minimal sampling of comments include JPB’s from Chicago, who wrote:

This article is somewhat misleading, and Ms. Santos [the aggrieved daughter featured in the NYT piece] is delusional.

My siblings and I opted to help my parents obtain a reverse mortgage and it’s been a godsend. In their case, they had lots of equity (in a fairly pricey property), good health, and very little cash.

We were never expecting to inherit anything; the reverse mortgage is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. It has allowed my parents to remain in their home and removed a huge financial burden off their backs.

Jbsa wrote:

My mom has a reverse mortgage from a reputable bank. It lifted her obligation to make monthly payments out of her Social Security and teacher’s pension, which allowed her to stay in her home. We are aware that each month, the payment she would otherwise be making is instead a paper transaction that is reducing her equity in her home. That’s ok with us, her kids. We’d rather have her living in her home and not stressing about the payment. It’s been a huge financial relief. If, god willing, she lives long enough to completely exhaust the equity, the bank can’t kick her out. She gets to stay in the house for as long as she is able to live there. We won’t inherit the house, but that’s not the point. For us to inherit, she’d have to keep struggling to make those payments, or we’d have to make them for her. It’s a loan, just structured differently than a traditional one. It works as intended.

Peter R from Cresskill, New Jersey wrote:

I have the perspective of the reverse mortgage experience from start to finish. We secured a reverse mortgage in 2006 for my wife’s parents. We sold the house after both her parents had passed away by 2011. There are many reasons to have one and many sides to the benefits. The main benefit is for the parents….

But I think my favorite is by a senior homeowner identified as Entice, from Miami, Florida:

So, I’m a homeowner, I paid over the years from the money that I earned. It’s my largest asset. I’m now in need of additional money. I take out a reverse mortgage to provide for my needs – note, I’m not sponging off my grateful children. I die. My grateful children’s response is “what do you mean we don’t get the house, we didn’t support the old man in his declining years.” I took out a reverse mortgage because I can’t get buried with my home and I sure am not going to leave it to my kids who have to learn to earn their own way in life. The mortgage company (RMS) spelled out in detail that when I die they get the house; my heirs might get a small residual from the sale or not; the company did not try to hide anything.

I guess it really shouldn’t surprise me a loan that enjoys over 90% positive reviews from those who have one would get good reviews. I only wish the popular press would stop working so hard to scare the daylights out of seniors and their adult children.

No one is going to get by on just their Social Security. No one is going to make it on their 401-K. Few are going to survive on their pension, their annuity, their IRA, their bank account – or their reverse mortgage. But when added together, all these combine to create a long-term means of maintaining dignity and independence in retirement.

If you would like to explore how an FHA reverse mortgage might help with your retirement plans, give me a call. I always love hearing from you.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS 506562] is a freelance writer and Reverse Mortgage Consultant at Middleburg Mortgage. She can be reached at: 703-477-1183 or Laurie@MiddleburgReverse.com.

 

 

Stick to What You Know, Suze

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story, Retirement Planning, Reverse Mortgage

I don’t own a television – I never have. And, frankly, I cannot imagine any scenario under which I would want one. This fact is material to what I say next:

Suze Orman needs to butt out of discussions on topics she clearly does not know well.

In order here is a bit of background leading up to this admittedly snarky statement.

This past week I attended an event where a woman said to me, “I don’t really know much about reverse mortgages, but Suze Orman doesn’t like them – so that’s enough for me.” I mentioned I didn’t know who Suze Orman was, and the woman, clearly shocked, answered, “Suze Orman? She’s on TV. She’s America’s financial guru.”

STRIKE THREE, Suze. You’re out, girlfriend.

Strike one is this: for one television personality to impose her opinion upon her entire viewing audience displays presumptuousness beyond measure. Where does she get off saying the 6,000,000 million Americans over the age of 62 have the same needs, and can be told, out of hand, a reverse mortgage should be a last resort? This is particularly audacious in light of the many scholarly pieces published within the past three years showing so-called “reserve reverse” mortgages – those established early and used to augment other savings – greatly increase odds of financial survival in retirement. She’s out of date, off base, and apparently not well read.

Strike two: in her online transcript Orman says, “I would much rather you base your retirement on other income sources—your savings, Social Security, and a pension.” I would love to meet the person who says, “By golly, I would never have thought of that. Use my Social Security, pension, and savings to cover my living expenses? Thank God for Suze Orman, or I would have missed that altogether.”

To this point I say this: one of the worst things I see in the course of my job is the person doing what I call a “rescue reverse” – the person who has drained all other financial buckets, and is now turning to a reverse mortgage as a last resort. Many times, indeed, perhaps most times, had this person done a reverse mortgage when he still had other monies available, he would not be left wondering if his money would last. This is not hypothetical: the studies have been done, and these by major universities and retirement research institutes.

And…strike three? “America’s financial guru.” America’s financial guru? There are 360,000,000 Americans. That’s a lot of people for one “guru.” I’m surprised Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke, Harold Evensky, Robert Shiller, or any of the other 54 Americans to win the Nobel Prize in economics didn’t make the list.  And anyway, who says she’s America’s financial guru? It’s like saying Sandra Bullock is America’s sweetheart. Thank you, but I reserve the right to pick my own sweetheart – and my own financial advisor.

No one is going to get by on just their Social Security. No one is going to make it on their 401-K. Few are going to survive on their pension, their annuity, their IRA, their bank account – or their reverse mortgage. But when added together, all these combine to create a long-term means of maintaining dignity and independence in retirement.

If you would like to explore how an FHA reverse mortgage might help with your retirement plans, give me a call. I always love hearing from you.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS 506562] is a freelance writer and Reverse Mortgage Consultant at Middleburg Mortgage. She can be reached at: 703-477-1183 or Laurie@MiddleburgReverse.com.

Contemplations of a Crummy Magician

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story

I stood waving my hands in front of the paper towel dispenser like some feeble magician trying to conjure paper towels, when the thought occurred to me: I frankly can’t remember the last time I heard someone complain about the rigors of pulling a paper towel from its dispenser. Electric paper towel dispensers solve a problem that never was a problem.

This got me to thinking: how many other fixes fix problems that aren’t problems? And if you can believe it, I actually came up with several – but that’s a different commentary altogether. It’s the corollary that hit home.

Finite choices

Remember functions? Those funky f(x) equations in math class? Basically, a function says if I do this, I get that – one solution for each problem.

Fortunately, most day-to-day issues have many solutions. But here’s the thing: the farther one travels into retirement, the more limited options become.

Most of us are going to need additional options if we’re going to enjoy what experts call “financial survival in retirement.” Not a cool term…but a very real problem.

Larger solution sets

In what I consider one of the most encouraging transformations in the history of the reverse mortgage product, I am seeing a regular stream of clients referred from the financial planning community. Seniors seeking informed input are turning to an informed source, namely their financial professional. Of course, I’ll never know how many financial professionals steer their senior clients away from reverse mortgage – but I do know an increasing number tell me they view reverse mortgage as a legitimate financial tool when used in concert with a comprehensive financial plan.

Financial professionals refer clients to me well before catastrophe strikes, before clients’ means have dwindled, before financial limits are reached – before the financial boat plunges over the cliff of desperation.

Planners understand that more financial buckets equal a better outcome – and they understand that a reverse mortgage is simply an additional bucket.

Real solutions for real life

I hear the same stories everyone else in the financial industry hears: seniors unable to return to full-time employment. A spouse lost, and the resulting 50% drop in income. A catastrophic event – or a chronic condition that became financially catastrophic. Or, simply, too much life left at the end of the money.

A real problem meets a real solution

Unlike the motion-detecting paper towel dispenser, reverse mortgage is a real solution to a real problem.  When put in place preemptively, before it’s just a crisis management tool, reverse mortgage can be part of a sound retirement plan.

No one is going to get by on just their Social Security. No one is going to make it on their 401-K. Few are going to survive on their pension, their annuity, their IRA, their bank account – or their reverse mortgage. But when added together, all these combine to create a long-term means of maintaining dignity and independence in retirement.

If you would like to explore how an FHA reverse mortgage might help with your retirement plans, give me a call. I always love hearing from you.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS 506562] is a freelance writer and Reverse Mortgage Consultant at Middleburg Mortgage. She can be reached at: 703-477-1183 or Laurie@MiddleburgReverse.com.

The Eternal Question of the Potato Chip Purchase

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story

Ok – to be honest, here’s a question I never thought to ask: at what age do people buy the most potato chips?

Or how about their first home? How old on average is the person buying that luxury car? For that matter, at what age does a person’s spending peak?

Turns out, all these age-related questions have highly predictable answers.  And because the answers are highly predictable, there are trends you can pretty much hang your hat on, particularly when it comes to expenses related to aging.

On February 11 the weekly Congressional Budget Office reported:

Beyond 2017, CBO expects that economic growth will diminish to a pace that is well below the average seen over the past several decades. That projected slowdown mainly reflects long-term trends—particularly, slower growth in the labor force because of the aging of the population. (Read the full report at: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/45098-Testimony_Senate.pdf)

But who is responsible for paying for aging-related costs? That was a question posed to nations around the globe by the Pew Research Center. In January of this year Pew reported the U.S. is one of only four countries that believe seniors should be self-pay throughout retirement. In fact, 46% of U.S. respondents believe the elderly should be financially self-supporting, topping by a fairly wide margin the other three nations, which include South Korea, Germany and Britain.

Frankly, count me squarely among the 46%. I don’t want my daughters footing the bill for my retirement years: they’re going to need for their own retirement every penny they can save.

However, saying you want to be self-pay and actually achieving it are two different things. In fact, according to some studies, in the U.S. nearly 70% of seniors receive family assistance – both financial and physical.

There are no easy answers to financing longevity. It would be nice to think someone holds the magic solution to financial issues related to aging. Expecting the government to come up with the solution clearly is not going to work. Hoping for a miracle is a long shot, and hitting the lottery a longer shot still.

It’s going to take planning, creativity, help from family, friends and faith communities, and cooperation at the hyper-local level to get most Americans through retirement with as much independence and dignity as possible.

Fortunately Americans in general, and boomers in particular, are characterized by creativity, resilience, and determination, and I, for one, think we’re up for the challenge.

And, as I have said many, many times: reverse mortgage is going to play a role for many of us.

Reverse mortgage was never meant to be the full financial solution to retirement needs.  For most of us, there is not going to be one all-inclusive solution that meets evolving needs in retirement. However, when combined as part of a comprehensive plan, reverse mortgage funds will combine to fund our ever-increasing longevity, and make aging in place possible for many.

Oh, and by the way – age 42, 31, 53, and 46. Just in case you were wondering.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS 506562] is a freelance writer and Reverse Mortgage Consultant at Middleburg Mortgage. She can be reached at: 703-477-1183 or Laurie@MiddleburgReverse.com.

Alien Abductions, Anyone?

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story
Laurie MacNaughton [506562]

This past week an article on reverse mortgage appeared in the online edition of CNNMoney, a publication with a solid history of well-written, well-researched financial news. Last week’s piece, however, entitled Reverse mortgages: Safer, but far from risk-free, is chock full of inaccuracies, muddled concepts, and inflammatory comments, and is altogether unworthy of an esteemed publication. Just about the only way the reporting could be worse was if it included interviews with victims of alien abductions.

The article’s subtitle reads, About 10% of reverse mortgage borrowers go into default. Apparently, author Les Christie failed to read the report from which this statistic was taken. Or is it rather that CNNMoney editorial staff jobs have been outsourced to piecework editors in India? Whichever the case, the inaccurate reporting is inexcusable.

Accurate information on FHA-insured reverse mortgages is not hard to come by – but it does require at least a minimum of fact-checking, and – gasp – a careful reading of the publicly-available congressional reverse mortgage audit.

If this blogpost were simply a rant about yet another sensationalistic slam aimed at reverse mortgage, it would not be worth the reading, much less the writing.

But here’s the thing: something far larger is at stake here, namely, the financial well-being of an already fearful, highly vulnerable sector – Americans heading into retirement and those already well into their retirement years.

With every inflammatory, factually-inaccurate, poorly-researched piece, seniors grow yet more fearful of a product that has a long track record of success when used as part of a long-term financial plan. Les Christie and CNNMoney do seniors no favor by presenting obsolete objections, inaccurate figures, and wrongly-interpreted statistics.

Reverse mortgage was never intended to meet every financial goal in retirement. However, it can create a federally-insured financial safety net, an extra financial “bucket,” to draw upon in the retirement years.

If you would like to learn more about how FHA-insured reverse mortgage may help meet your retirement goals – or would just like to talk – give me a call. I always love hearing from you.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS 506562] is a freelance writer and Reverse Mortgage Consultant at Middleburg Mortgage. She can be reached at: 703-477-1183 or Laurie@MiddleburgReverse.com.

Guilty as Charged

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story, Retirement Planning, Reverse for Purchase, Reverse Mortgage
Laurie MacNaughton [506562]  © 2014

I could hear it in her voice, I could see it in her eyes – the fear, the sublimated guilt, the tears lurking just beneath her every word.

Her sin? Old age.

Her crime? The loss of her husband of 58 years. And, with his death went fully 50% of her household income.

And now a new challenge: she has suffered a stroke, and though her recovery is steady, it is slow, and the long-time family home is simply no longer appropriate.

I met with “Mrs. Jones” last night. Her darling middle-aged daughter joined us, and mentioned it was a realtor who had given them my name. After speaking with both mother and daughter it became clear just how good a call it was on the part of the realtor: Mrs. Jones needs out of this big house, and to get into a home appropriate to aging in place.

HECM for Purchase

HECM for Purchase (also known as Reverse for Purchase) is an FHA-insured home-purchase loan available to seniors aged 62 or older. The purchaser provides a down payment – often derived from the sale of the exit home – and the HECM for Purchase loan provides the rest of the purchase funds.

Punto. That’s is. That is the last mortgage payment the home buyer will make on that home until s/he permanently leaves the home. At that point the loan will be repaid from the proceeds of the sale, and the remaining equity will belong to the homeowner, or to the heirs.

Property taxes (if applicable), homeowners insurance, and routine upkeep of the home are still required.

Are you in a home too big, or with too much upkeep, or with too many stairs? Have your longtime neighbors moved, leaving you in a neighborhood you no longer recognize? Has traffic become such an ordeal you are afraid to leave your house?

Give me a call and let’s talk. Include your adult children on the conversation. And together, let’s explore your options. You may have far more than you know.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS# 506562] · Reverse Mortgage Consultant, President’s Club · Middleburg Mortgage · 20937 Ashburn Road, Suite 115 ·Ashburn, Virginia 20147 · 703-477-1183 Direct · Laurie@MiddleburgReverse.com

   Visit me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MiddleburgReverseMortgage

Licensed in: Maryland (MD), Washington, DC, Virginia (VA), Pennsylvania (PA), Delaware (DE), North Carolina (NC), South Carolina (SC), Georgia (GA), Tennessee (TN).

Soldiering Through: Men on the Front Lines of Caregiving

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story
Laurie MacNaughton

When my firstborn was barely two she and her best friend, a little boy named Willoughby (really), spent the afternoon playing with an assortment of stuffed toys. While Willoughby practiced drop-kicking the animals against the wall, Jessica sat diapering them. When I fed them peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, Jessica nibbled hers into a rainbow; from his, Willoughby manufactured a gun.

Assertions of my feminist friends notwithstanding, as the mother of girls I firmly believe it is the easy province of a woman to care for the weak, the sick, the young, the aged. And, be it nurture or nature I think these tasks come harder to men. Thus, I have unqualified respect and admiration for what seems to me to be an increasing number of adult sons serving as primary caregivers for aged and infirm parents.

I am just returned from visiting my own mother whose agonizing last chapter is rapidly drawing to a close. Seated beside her, hour after hour, is my oldest brother. A retired Bell Labs particle physicist and former Ivy League professor, this caregiving role is not an easy fit. Yet there he sits, tending her unglamorous, repetitive, relentlessly-increasing needs. I took his place as much as possible during my stay, and invariably he headed for bed in an attempt to catch up on months’ worth of missed sleep.

For my part, when my mother slept I returned phone calls. Back-to-back I spoke with two men, one a prospering real estate broker who, weekends, travels a thousand miles each way to help with his mother’s care; I then spoke with an aging adult son serving as primary caregiver for his advanced elderly father. Not many days earlier an elder law attorney called me in reference to a client trying valiantly to honor his mother’s wish to age in place, despite her degenerative condition.

Then tonight, Thanksgiving night, as I drove home from the airport I took a call. An unspoken universe of sacrifice implicit in the adult son’s one statement hit home in a way he could scarcely imagine: “My concept of normality has gone to pot,” he said simply.

Nothing more need be said, my friend. Well am I aware of what you have forgone to care for your mother. And well I know how meager is the support for a man serving on the front lines in this role as primary caregiver.

Residential managed care has an indispensable function in today’s world. Professional in-home caregivers are invaluable, and hospice a godsend. But rarely are any of these the full solution to aging parents’ needs. It is appropriate that family cares for family – and there simply is no substitute for family.

So men – those of you who diaper and dress and swab and shower an aging parent, who mop and launder and scour and scrub until late into the night: you are an example to all of us privileged to know you.

And if you would like to talk about help financing your aging parents’ needs – or would just like to talk – give me a call. I always love hearing from you.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS 506562] is a freelance writer and Reverse Mortgage Consultant at Middleburg Mortgage, a Division of Middleburg Bank. She can be reached at: 703-477-1183 or LMacNaughton@MiddleburgBank.com.

You Thought it Couldn’t Happen – A New Home in Your Future

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story, FHA HECM, Retirement Planning, Reverse for Purchase, Reverse Mortgage
Laurie MacNaughton 11|2013

The numbers are compelling: according to the National Association of Realtors, last year over 26% of homes were sold to homebuyers over the age of 50. And as the peak bulge of the boomer generation approaches, this number is expected to rise dramatically until it makes up the largest homebuyer market in American history.

But here’s the thing: it’s this same cohort that has had the toughest time saving adequately for retirement. Many people automatically assume this group has been spendthrifty, careless about planning, poor at saving, in denial about aging, and overly optimistic about retirement costs. And to some extent this is true, especially if they are compared against their own parents, the highly thrifty members of the Greatest Generation.

However, there are many untold sides to this story. First, the boomer cohort was disproportionately hit by the Great Recession. Though fewer of those aged 50-62 lost their jobs than did 20-somethings, if laid off, older workers experienced a dramatically longer period of unemployment. As they are hired back, often it is for lower wages than they earned at their previous job. Further complicating their financials is that many in this group still have children at home – or in college.

But the really pricy bill comes due when boomers care for their aging parents. By the time most people are in their 60s, their parents are in their late 80s or early 90s. In many cases the parents long ago depleted their own savings and assets, and now look to their aging children for support. It is this multifaceted convergence of events that causes an almost unwinnable financial challenge.

So with this as a backdrop, a question I commonly get from aging boomers is, “Should we refinance the home we’re in, or should we buy something with less upkeep?”

Obviously I don’t know – but I do have quite a body of knowledge of what others have taken into consideration. Following is a starting point for things to consider:

  1. Is your existing home safe, including layout and accessibility to bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and laundry?
  2. Is the home the right configuration? How about size?
  3. Are you able to keep up with the yard and the household maintenance?
  4. Is the location still right, meaning are you close enough to family so they can check in on you?
  5. Have traffic patterns gotten dangerous?
  6. Are you close to doctors, shopping, amenities, recreation, and your house of worship?
  7. Do you still know your neighbors?
  8. Will this still be the right house in 10 years? How about in 15?

If you answer a significant number of these “no,” moving might be a logical consideration. However, for anyone who recently has applied for a home loan knows, lending laws and regulations have become akin to invasive surgery. And for those looking to retire, or who have already retired, securing a loan can be very, very difficult.

However, FHA’s seniors’-only HECM for Purchase was specifically designed with the retired – or soon to be retired – buyer in mind. While there are qualifications that must be met, they are not as stringent as those governing “forward” lending.

Another very beneficial element of HECM for Purchase is that you can buy your new home before you have sold your exit home. Not only does this get you into your new home in a timely fashion, but you now have time to market your exit home and wait for the next peak sales season to roll around before selling.

But perhaps best of all, rather than tying up a significant amount of your financial resources in the new house by doing an all-cash purchase, you bring to the table only a percentage of the purchase price, which allows you to keep liquid more of your savings, or more cash from the sale of your exit home.

If you have been thinking about moving and didn’t think it was a realistic possibility, give me a call and let’s talk. You may very well be delighted to learn you have a new home in your future.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS# 506562] · Reverse Mortgage Consultant, President’s Club · Middleburg Mortgage, a Division of Middleburg Bank · 20937 Ashburn Road, Suite 115 ·Ashburn, Virginia 20147 · 703-477-1183 Direct · LMacNaughton@MiddleburgBank.com

Adult Children of Aging Parents

by ReverseLady, posted in Caring for Aging Parents; A Daughter's Story, FHA HECM, Retirement Planning, Reverse Mortgage

The vast majority of aging Americans want to remain in their own home as they age. However, making the necessary home modifications and paying for appropriate in-home care can create a serious financial drain on adult children. Increasingly, long-term retirement planning includes a reverse mortgage as a means to make it possible for our parents to age in place, and to address their income shortfalls in retirement.

Following is some helpful information when considering an FHA-insured reverse mortgage (or HECM) for your parents:

• The bank does NOT get your parents’ home once they permanently leave the home.

• The home always remains titled in your parents’ name.

• If the home goes down in value, neither your parents, nor you, nor your parents’ estate can ever owe more than the value of the home when it is sold. If you or your siblings wish to purchase the home, you secure your own financing and buy the home – just as you would if your parents had a traditional “forward” mortgage.

• Proceeds from the reverse mortgage are tax-free.

There are unique challenges that face families as loved ones age. As the daughter of an aging mother, I know first-hand the challenges of helping an older parent, and I understand what you’re going through as you assist your parents with their financial needs.

Call me at any time with questions…or if you just want to discuss needs, as I maintain an extensive list of aging-related service providers. I look forward to speaking with you.

Laurie

Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS# 506562] · Reverse Mortgage Consultant, President’s Club · Middleburg Mortgage, a Division of Middleburg Bank · 20937 Ashburn Road, Suite 115 ·Ashburn, Virginia 20147 · 703-477-1183 Direct · LMacNaughton@MiddleburgBank.com