March 27, 2017
Mr. and Mrs. Smith had worked very hard to pay off the mortgage on their house. However, by the time they both retried they still owed about $100,000.
As their regular income was gone, they had to use Social Security benefits to pay for the current monthly mortgage payment on the remaining $100,000. Which was not easy, because their combined benefits were only about $4,000 per month. Their monthly mortgage payment was about $1,800, and with the added expensive of property tax and home owner’s insurance, they were struggling to make ends meet.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith contacted a realtor to sell their home. With the precious family memories and the invested money and energy on upgrades and improvements that they have put into their home of 20 years, they realized that they really love the place and were not ready to let it go. So, they decided not to sell the house, and the realtor referred them to me.
After I had an interview with them, I realized that a reverse mortgage would really help them! They met the requirements: Both were more than 62 years old and they had plenty of equity in their home.
A reverse mortgage would pay off their current mortgage and set aside enough of reserve to pay property tax and home owner’s insurance. Best of all, they would have no monthly payments to make until they decide to sell their home, to possibly down size, or move into an assisted living type community.
Smiles finally returned to their faces. Now they could really enjoy their lives: They were planning a trip to visit South America. A trip they had been putting off for so many years that they were overjoyed to know that it was now going to become a reality!
Cathy (not her real name to protect the privacy) has been a client of mine for many years; I helped her to get her purchase loan when she first purchased a house some 10 years ago.
Over the years, she got in financial trouble (as most of us have during the great recession), and she started to pile up debt. She took out a second loan on her house and charged up her credit cards. Worse than that, she was not able to make minimum payments on her credit cards or make payments on time, causing her credit score to drop significantly. Thus, the interest rates on her credit cards skyrocketed! She really struggled each and every month just to get by. She was also never able to refinance her two loans as her credit score were too low. Pretty much all of her and her husband’s income was being used to catch up on payments. She literally could not even afford to go out to have a nice lunch.
She called me. At first I concentrated on helping her to improve her credit score enough to refinance her two loans into a FHA loan. Was this loan was secured, her monthly mortgage payment was reduced dramatically, this extra money she saved allowed her to catch up on the credit card payments. Six month later, her credit score improved nicely, and I refinanced her FHA loan into a conventional loan with some cash-out to pay off her credit debts. In the end, her total month payments were cut in half! Now, she can afford to enjoy that nice lunch she has been craving for years.