A reversed mortgage is designed specifically for homeowners who are age 62 and older. Through this product, you can receive loan money from your home in the form of a lump sum, regular monthly checks or a line of credit. The money is typically repaid with interest when you sell your house, permanently move away, or pass away.

Reverse mortgages are getting to be more and more common these days. Why? Reverse mortgage loan advances are not taxable, and generally don’t affect your Social Security or Medicare benefits. You retain the title to your home, and you don’t have to make monthly repayments. The loan must be repaid when the last surviving borrower dies, sells the home, or no longer lives in the home as a principal residence. Unlike a regular mortgage, the homeowner makes no payments and all interest is added to the lien on the property.

There are three types of reverse mortgages:

• Single-purpose reverse mortgages, offered by some state and local government agencies and nonprofit organizations

• Federally-insured reverse mortgages, known as Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs) and backed by the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

• Proprietary reverse mortgages, private loans that are backed by the companies that develop them.

Single-purpose reverse mortgages are the least expensive option. They are not available everywhere and can be used for only one purpose, which is specified by the government or nonprofit lender. For example, the lender might say the loan may be used only to pay for home repairs, improvements, or property taxes. Most homeowners with low or moderate income can qualify for these loans.

An FHA insured home equity conversion mortgage (HECM) and proprietary reverse mortgages are sometimes more expensive than traditional home loans. That’s important to consider, especially if you plan to stay in your home for just a short time or borrow a small amount. HECM reverses are widely available, have no income or medical requirements, and can be used for any purpose.

Reverse mortgages pay you in a variety of ways. You can receive a lump-sum, periodic payments, a line of credit, or some type of combination. Lump Sum is the easiest. You get the loan balance all at once. Do with it what you will, yet there won’t be more for you tomorrow. If you sign up for a periodic payment plan, you’ll get regular payments. These payments might last for a number of years (10 years, for example), or until your loan comes due (often as a result of your death or your permanently moving out of the home).

If you don’t know exactly how much you’ll spend or how soon you’ll need it, a line of credit may make sense. Some reverse mortgage lines of credit are “growing” lines of credit meaning you may have more and more money available to you as time goes on. Not bad. Can’t decide? You can use a combination of the programs above. For example, you might take a smaller lump sum up front and keep a line of credit for later. This may be a reasonable approach if you need to pay off existing debt with a portion of your reverse mortgage loan.

Reverse mortgages have helped hundreds of thousands of homeowners improve their quality of life in retirement. A Reverse Mortgage can help you retire more comfortably. It can provide you with money when you need it most. No Monthly Mortgage Payments, Easy Qualification, Tax-Free Money and No cash needed for closing costs.

A reversed mortgage is designed specifically for homeowners who are age 62 and older. Through this product, you can receive loan money from your home in the form of a lump sum, regular monthly checks or a line of credit. The money is typically repaid with interest when you sell your house, permanently move away, or pass away.

Reverse mortgage loan advances are not taxable, and generally don’t affect your Social Security or Medicare benefits. You retain the title to your home, and you don’t have to make monthly repayments. The loan must be repaid when the last surviving borrower dies, sells the home, or no longer lives in the home as a principal residence. Unlike a regular mortgage, the homeowner makes no payments and all interest is added to the lien on the property.

When it comes to the issue of tax deductibility, things get a little hairy. Unlike a conventional mortgage, the accrued interest associated with a reverse mortgage is not tax-deductible in the usual fashion; it is deductible at the time the reverse is paid off.

A reverse mortgage is a type of loan in which is allowed up to a certain percentage of the full equity in a home; also called reverse annuity mortgage or home equity conversion mortgage (HECM). Reverse mortgages are often used by for retired or elderly persons. Actually all lenders reverse programs that I have seen had a requirement like that you had to be at least 62 years old. The title of your home remains in your name and the home can be left to your heirs, this is always true. Obviously the lender will build up their equity in your home as you use yours. The reverse mortgage comes to an end when the borrowers have all passed away or the home is sold, or you move out permanently. Depending on the type of that you chose, a certain percentage of the home’s value can be reverse mortgaged. Fortunately the target audience is often no longer full time employed anyway; lenders will not have any income or credit score requirements to qualify for a reverse mortgage.

Both the upfront expense of a reverse mortgage (loan origination fee) and the interest accrued over the life of the reverse mortgage are added to your reverse mortgage balance. So you don’t actually pay these items. The IRS states that these expenses since they are not actually paid cannot be deducted until the reverse mortgage matures. This is the case when you sell your home or used up all equity.

Reverse mortgages have helped hundreds of thousands of homeowners improve their quality of life in retirement. A Reverse Mortgage can help you retire more comfortably. It can provide you with money when you need it most. No Monthly Mortgage Payments, Easy Qualification, Tax-Free Money and No cash needed for closing costs.

A 1994 Advisory Council on Social Security trends and issues concluded that reverse mortgages could provide an additional source of income for seniors although at the time housing prices were not high enough to make this a meaningful source. Well, things have changed.

A reverse mortgage is still a loan with your house as the collateral, but it is entirely different from the kind of mortgage you got when you bought your first house. These are the major differences:

The Lender Pays You

That’s correct. You do not make a monthly payment with a reverse mortgage. The lender pays you, and the loan can be set up so that you can get paid in a lump sum, you can get paid regular monthly amount, or you can get paid at the times and in the amounts you request.
The terms of the loan determine what each of these amounts would be. The primary determining factors are your age, the value of your house, and the prevailing interest rates at the time.

You Continue to Live in Your House

Staying in your house is really the whole purpose of reverse mortgages when you get down to it. The twist is that instead of paying somebody else to live there, you get paid while you continue to live there.

You are actually required by the terms of the loan to continue to live in the house as your principal residence. You can spend any amount of time visiting your children and grandchildren, you can travel for pleasure, and you can continue to spend summers at the lake so long as the house remains your principal residence.

You Retain Ownership of Your House

A reverse mortgage is not a sale. You keep all the rights of ownership that you had before the reverse mortgage loan. You do not need the lender’s permission to paint the house a different color or to remodel. You can put your house on the market and sell it to the highest bidder. You can will it to your children.

If there is a change in ownership, such as by sale or through the death of the last surviving owner, the reverse mortgage will have to be paid off at that time. The lender would be entitled to receive from the proceeds of the sale only the amount you actually received from the lender plus all accrued and unpaid interest to date. Any amount remaining after paying off the reverse mortgage lender would go to you, to your surviving spouse, or to your estate.

The Principal Amount of the Loan Increases With Each Payment

Another way of saying this is that you control the amount that must eventually be paid back by controlling the amount of money you actually get from the lender. A reverse mortgage is still a loan, and the money plus interest has to be paid back at some time, usually from the sale of the house after you and your spouse no longer live there.

Because the principal amount of a reverse mortgage cannot be determined until after you no longer live at the property, neither can the maturity date of the loan. This can a difficult concept to wrap your mind around because it is so different from conventional mortgages.

You Can Never Owe More Than the Value of Your House

This is true for the two reverse mortgage products sponsored by the Federal government (HECM and Home Keepers) although it may not be true for privately created reverse mortgage programs.

The benefit of the Federal programs is that you, your surviving spouse, or your estate, can never owe more than the loan balance or the value of your house, whichever is less. Your reverse mortgage lender cannot require repayment from you, your surviving spouse, or your heirs, or from any asset other than your house.