Random Order Weblog - Nothing’s too random!

My grandma up in Oregon is considering getting a reverse mortgage to help her pay the bills. For those of you that have dealt with them before, you’ll know that reverse mortgages can be really complicated. In the United States, after the age of sixty two you are considered a senior citizen and this often makes you eligible for a reverse mortgage, as I understand it. The basic concept is that instead of making monthly payments, the “would be monthly payments” are added to your debt in the home (like a home equity line of credit, or HELOC loan) Furthermore, many seniors will choose to actually receive money instead of making a payment (thus the term reverse mortgage) and have the money they receive be added to the debt amount. For a lot of older people this kind of mortgage sounds really appealing. They aren’t going to be around forever, they know that, and they want to enjoy life as much as they can while they are alive. A reverse mortgage could potentially help them do that.

What I am most concerned with is that I would hate to have my grandma end up in some tricky deal that robs her of her hard earned home. For that reason, my family / father and I are going to make sure she finds a good attorney in her area that can not only help her find a good reverse mortgage lender, but also help her understand exactly what the deal means for her. This way we will all know exactly what she is getting into before it happens, and we will also have the comfort of a lawyer advising us to make sure we don’t mess anything up.

In the mean time, my farther and I have been doing our best to read up on reverse mortgages as much as we can on the internet. Luckily, as with most subjects, the internet seems to be rife with just the kind of information we’re looking for.