To be a senior homeowner in California is, for the most part, fortunate.  As we all know, many seniors who have owned a home in California for a long time have seen massive increases in their home equity.  Their employer pensions may have been cut, their social security alone may not be what they hoped, and stock market investments may have faltered, but the value of their homes is very often two or three times more than what they paid for it.

Until the reverse mortgage, a huge pile of home equity did not do the senior a lot of good.  Most seniors found the only two ways of tapping into it to be unattractive: sell their beloved home and move somewhere unfamiliar or take out a new mortgage against their home saddling themselves with monthly payments.

For most seniors their home is not only a possession, but important to their sense of security, comfort and pride - to give it up just to have money to live on often seems wrong to them.  Cashing out some of their home equity with a new mortgage seems to be a risky proposition for most seniors, at best.  What happens when they run out of money and can no longer afford the mortgage payments? Their options are few and unwelcome: sell the home or be foreclosed upon.

Now consider the arrival of the reverse mortgage in California. The name may initially sound scary to some seniors, but when investigated, many find it to be the perfect solution. Without selling their home or taking on a mortgage payment, the reverse mortgage allows seniors to receive a portion of their home equity in cash. This enables the senior to continue living in their own their home, have the cash they need to live on, and all without any new debt payments. For these reasons, the reverse mortgage can be a much better solution than selling their home or obtaining a new traditional mortgage.

As the need for additional retirement money has grown among the California senior population, the popularity of reverse mortgages in California has increased by 658% from 2003 to 2006. However, the moderation of recent statistics suggests that an educational challenge still remains. Many seniors are under the false impression that obtaining a reverse mortgage means that they will lose some control over their home or that the lender will take their home at some point in the future. They often feel that there are somehow jeopardizing their home by taking on a reverse mortgage. Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

On the contrary, the California reverse mortgage lender must guarantee to the senior that they will not have to make a mortgage payment for as long as they live in their home. The senior is guaranteed security in their home by having the money from a reverse mortgage to use for any purpose. With minimal obligations on the senior's part, the lender cannot do anything to affect their continued home ownership and occupancy. As seniors learn how these facts contribute to their sense of security, comfort and independence, the popularity of the reverse mortgage in California and other states will continue to grow.