Browse the news below to learn about important developments shaping retirement.
New options, spin on reverse mortgages
Chicago Tribune, November 26th, 2006
Once an expensive last resort for elderly homeowners struggling
for financial survival, reverse mortgages are now being sold as retirement
planning tools for affluent people.
Despite a softening housing market,
mortgage brokers say homeowners are using them to tap into their equity to
invest in stocks, upgrade their living quarters or simply pay expenses in lieu
of dipping into their retirement accounts too heavily.
Federally insured
reverse mortgages grew a stunning 77 percent in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30
compared with the year-earlier period, according to the National Reverse
Mortgage Lenders Association. That's 76,351 home equity conversion mortgages,
which are available to homeowners 62 and older.
But this may be one of
those parties where it pays to arrive fashionably late. Industry growth and
soaring home values have spawned several new players--particularly in the
private jumbo-loan market--and as new products hit the market, the deals are
expected to get better, experts said.
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