Continuing in a reverse mortgage-focused series, The Mortgage Professor writes this week for Inman news about making the reverse mortgage dollar last.
There are several ways a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage can enhance a retirement plan, the Mortgage Professor, a.k.a. Jack Guttentag writes: Supplement income with a tenure payment, use a line of credit to offset pension termination or to avoid running out of assets, or use a term payment to avoid depleting assets.
“A major and potentially valuable feature of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program is that it offers multiple options regarding how a senior can withdraw funds, as well as the flexibility to switch from one option to another as one’s circumstances change,” Guttentag writes. “This makes the HECM a potentially valuable component of a senior’s retirement plan.”
The industry, he says, however, is focused on the all-cash option, which is “easier to explain, easier to sell and much more profitable.”
Guttentag writes:
“….Use a term annuity to avoid running out of assets
Seniors who enter retirement with a block of financial assets that they intend to use up during their remaining life face the challenge of deciding how much of these assets they can draw down each year without running out of money while they are still alive. HECM term annuities help deal with this challenge by allowing the senior to delay the process of asset depletion. Term annuities can be three or four times as large as a tenure annuity because the payments don’t last as long.
If the payment on a 10-year annuity is adequate to meet the senior’s needs, for example, the senior’s assets can be allowed to grow for another 10 years before asset depletion begins. This substantially reduces the danger of running out.
Use a credit line to avoid running out of assets
More affluent retirees who have assets sufficient to carry them well past their expected life span may nevertheless feel uncomfortable about the possibility, however small, that they could run out if their life span is exceptionally long. A HECM credit line is the perfect insurance policy against that contingency because it grows over time and it costs a tiny fraction of what a life insurance policy offering the same cash draw would cost. In most cases, the line won’t be used and the senior’s equity in the house would go to his estate, but meanwhile he has peace of mind.”
View the full article at Inman News or the Mortgage Professor’s website.
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
