The article posted on line on 2/15/10 entitled “What’s Wrong With Reverse Mortgage’s” was brought to my attention by Mario Martirano, my colleague and the founder and president of Agency For Consumer Equity.
The introduction to the article starts off in a rather benign manner.  However, prior experience has shown us that such benign appearing intros often wind up as anything but. The reader is initially admonished not to view these red flags as negative aspects of reverse mortgages. Rather, we are told, “that when big money is involved there are …

Lifeless policy decisions are policies made up of regulations, laws and administrative rulings that look good on paper but fail in the world of the living.

This industry is working in an unrecognized parallel lifeless world. This new zeitgeist has become the world of the file.  Papers that make up the file are given more weight than the subjects of the file. Caring and emotion are sucked down the drain.

Humor ( OK some may not agree)is used to make a poignant point. Please keep in mind that this  is …

 Thanks to overzealous regulations, you, the regulators, have planted a time bomb that will explode with    an annihilative force that will eradicate the reverse mortgage industry and perhaps the forward mortgage industry as well. 

The enemy of the people was not the mortgage bankers, mortgage brokers and FDIC Banks, who sold those liar loans that went bad. If truth be told, they were just complying with the demands of the secondary market. It was the unbridled greed of the secondary market s that created the imbecilic, maniacal mania that led …

The forward mortgage and reverse mortgage industries are prosperous in angst and rich in abject despair as it tries to navigate rules and laws that are un-navigable. They create layers of redundant and unnecessary activities  that have no basis in serving the needs of the borrowing customer. The mortgage industry  as a whole, is like the octopus on roller skates-moving in different directions without going anywhere.

Accordingly, the forward mortgage and reverse mortgage industries will collapse from the weight of its own collective detritus. Neither possessed a sufficient enough vision of protecting their …

A decision dated Dec 18, 2009 by New York Supreme Court (the highest court in the state of New York is the Court of Appeals) Judge Charles Thomas appeared in the New York Law Journal on January 8, 2010 (Judge faults lack of counseling to homeowner, saying she lacked capacity to enter into mortgage). The crux of the case involved the attempt of a temporary guardian to vacate a reverse mortgage placed upon the property by Financial Freedom.

The facts, as I understand them, are the following: Ms. Brunson purchased the …

One can always discern the bias of an article from the introductory remarks.  While the article acknowledges that seniors are living longer, it goes on to suggest that reverse mortgages are “often expensive and unnecessary.”  The reporter ( I use this word begrudgingly) continues, “Though reverse mortgages have their place, it is a rare one. Be cautious.”

The financial planners that were interviewed urge creative solutions like selling the home to the kids. How many kids are in a position to entertain such a transaction. Many of the adult children have lost …

With the passage of the reverse mortgage amendment (to HR 4173) in the House of Representatives, the possibility exists that the Consumer Financial Protection Agency will have oversight over the reverse mortgage industry.

In the past, I have suggested that the industry needs a new kind of oversight. The counterintuitive notion of a reverse mortgage “czar” overseeing the industry could be a good thing. Consider this: The reverse mortgage industry has been in existence for twenty years. Yet the industry has not been able to shake the ubiquitous misconceptions that continue to …

The reverse mortgage program really needs to remain strong and robust. It must include condos and co-ops and as many older Americans as possible. This means that the spot condo approval needs to remain in effect indefinitely. It also means that the co-op procedure must be comprehensible. Many fear that it will not be. This inscrutability will act as a de facto elimination of co-ops.  The program must be void of further haircuts. Congress must provide any needed subsidies as long as the program remains in the MMIF.

 The implementation …

I believe that it is time to take a step back to digest and review the recent changes that have occurred and to also focus upon impending changes that will be implemented shortly.  This review is meaningless unless we over-lay the new HUD maxim-“risk management”. Accordingly, it is important to become aware of the aphorism “how one views something will determine what one sees”. And so it is with reverse mortgages. The focus of helping our elders seems to have taken a back seat to efficient long term management (at …

Time to rethink finances? Louisville Courier-Journal And the federal government has been buying mortgage -backed securities, pushing interest rates down.