"Reverse" Mortgages
Reverse mortgages can be used by applicants aged 62 years and up. This type of mortgage can be used to pay off existing liens on a home or to purchase a home. Whichever way it is used there are no monthly mortgage payments!
How do you qualify? The applicant must be 62 years old or more. There are no requirements for income, asset, or credit! Why? Because there are no payments. The main factor in qualifying for a reverse mortgage is the amount of equity.
A reverse mortgage is a loan against your home that you do not have to pay back for as long as you live there. With a reverse mortgage, you can turn the value of your home into cash without having to move or to repay a loan each month.
The cash you get from a reverse mortgage can be paid to you as:
• a single lump sum of cash;
• a regular monthly cash advance;
• a "creditline" account that lets you decide when and how much of your available cash is paid to you; or
• a combination of these payment methods.
No matter how this loan is paid out to you, you typically don’t have to pay anything back until you die, sell your home, or permanently move out of your home.
Other Home Loans
To qualify for most home loans, the lender checks your income to see how much you can afford to pay back each month. But with a reverse mortgage, you don’t have to make monthly repayments. So you don’t need a minimum amount of income to qualify for a reverse mortgage. You could have no income, and still be able to get a reverse mortgage.
With most home loans, if you fail to make your monthly repayments, you could lose your home. But with a reverse mortgage, you don’t have any monthly repayments to make, so you can’t lose your home by failing to make them.
Reverse mortgages typically require no repayment for as long as you—or any co-owner(s) of yours—live in your home.
So they differ from other home loans in these important ways:
• you don’t need an income to qualify for a reverse mortgage; and
• you don’t have to make monthly repayments on a reverse mortgage.
The money you receice from a Reverse Mortgage can be used for whatever you would like. Use the money for home maintenance, repairs, upgrades, property taxes, homeowners insurance, prescriptions, in-home care, groceries, travel...anything.
