LIVING in REVERSE

Welcome to Living in Reverse

We all need accountability when it comes to dealing with our nations aging population. Today, the world is moving at such a fast speed we seem to forget sometimes that life is really a precious thing. When it comes to my parents, I want them to be happy in their older years as much as I was when I was a child with them. Now there really is no way to make that happen if I can’t be with them enough to even say hi or pick up the phone on a daily or weekly basis. Being as busy as we are on any given day, it seems we are negligent of our duties as children to our senior parents. They did raise us after all. Now that we are starting to see what that is really all about (some of us anyways), then we can see right away they spent a lot of time raising us. Now its time to take care of them.

My parents need a reverse mortgage. I am an agent who happens to do reverse mortgages. So I know about all of the “up” and “down” talk that goes on about these loans. One evening my dad called me and asked what I knew about the reverse mortgage process. I told him about the major banks that lend the money to cover the value of his home while he lived there. I also mentioned that there are smaller lenders who can sometimes make a loan work (within the FHA guidelines). I broke down the way a bank insures his loan and charges interest back to the loan. Finally we agreed that with a thousand dollar mortgage payment and a house that was worth over 6 hundred thousand, he would be able to get about 170 thousand from his home considering his age, and would not have to payback the amount he owed on the house. Being and agent who knows about these loans and knowing my mother and father needed some cash in reserves and could use $1000 a month I signed them up for a consultation with an FHA representative thinking they would come in to my office the following week.They did’nt show up right away. So the following weekend I went home to my parents (about 2 hours away) and I discussed at length the idea that this was their home and their lives we were talking about and not what they would “leave behind”.

Of course they would leave all that was here “behind” so I told them it is time now to be at one with “nature and each other.”

What I meant was, in this day and age the least I could do for my parents is assure them that it was going to be ok and that they were not selfish for taking the value of their house and turning it into a ‘new way of life’. Why would I, someone who had signed hundreds of people up for a reverse mortgage tell them I wouldn’t approve of their decision? I already had my fair share of conversations with people my age about the decision to take out a loan that would accrue interest. The fact was, I and my parents were no different than all those I helped through the process before. We were never ‘rich’ by the means of any standard. My parents both had jobs their whole lives and took care of every infraction or decision to better myself or our well being. So to me it was a simple decision. My father a savvy enough with his finances in his older years would make my mother happy with what ever she wanted while still having enough to plan their trips and buy his fishing outfit. This sense of freedom and happiness was overwhelming to me and for my parents it was enough to go out and “celebrate” together with my family. My father said to me six months later that this was what he was dreaming about when they called me from a gas station on the way to Moab.

This was really what I hoped for my parents and was glad to be of service in pointing out the cost/benefit analysis was on their side.