The “Mortgage Professor,” a.k.a. Jack Guttentag is continuing a foray into the reverse mortgage market through the launch of a new reverse mortgage calculator he says rivals all others on the market.
The calculator considers not only recent program changes and regulatory rules that apply to all reverse mortgage borrowers, but also what the Professor deems a consumer-friendly explanation of how the loan works and continues to work in the future.
The Mortgage Professor is making the calculator available to lenders free of charge, in exchange for an agreement the Mortgage Professor can post the lenders’ prices.
“We will make the calculator available free of charge to any HECM lender to place on their web site,” the Professor writes in a recent article. “The only proviso is that the lender also posts its prices with us so that borrowers can compare the prices with those of other lenders.”
Previously, Guttentag has written extensively about reverse mortgages and previously launched a tool for borrowers to compare rates across reverse mortgage lenders.
Guttentag also plans to begin offering reverse mortgage information to potential borrowers on a pro bono basis. This pre-lender consultation will help borrowers obtain more information than they may be able to gain during reverse mortgage counseling, but yet is not provided by a lender so does not violate Department of Housing and Urban Development rules.
“Under current law, before executing a HECM contract, a senior must be counseled by an independent party unconnected to the lender,” Guttentag writes. “While seniors can seek such counsel before contacting a lender, in practice they almost always contact a lender first and the lender provides them with a list of counselors. In good part, this defeats the purpose of the rule.”
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
