Michael Pinter's Reverse Mortgage Blog

I've been helping many people in foreclosure by getting them a Reverse Mortgage to pay off their loan. There are a lot of difficulties with this process, most of them pertaining to the existing lender (that is getting paid off) For the next few posts, I'm going to focus on this amazing use of a R...

I had a comment today from a reader who asked me why he would choose a Reverse Mortgage over a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) I answered the question briefly but I wanted to elaborate on it here. A HELOC is loan that requires 1) The borrower to qualify. If your credit is poor, if you don't ha...

Reverse Mortgages continue to grow despite many "experts" who clearly do not understand them, saying that they are a "last resort." The reality is that for some a Reverse Mortgage is a last resort, but for the majority of the people who are taking these loans, they are not. Reverse Mortgages are ...

The current increased Reverse Mortgage limits are set to expire at the end of this year. I hope that someone in the Federal Government realizes how many more people are being helped by the increased limit and has the sense to extend it indefinitely. No one is hurt by the increased limit and so ma...

I was asked this question by a client yesterday. I told him that others do realize it and there will probably be over 200,000 Reverse Mortgages given this year. If the government really understood the foreclosure "crisis" (See earlier posts as to why the crisis is much smaller than people realize...

I posted yesterday (and in the past) that rates have very little to do with people's decision whether or not to buy a home. I mentioned that eligibility and people's expectation of where housing prices are going are much bigger factors. I received some comments that said that people's uncertainty...

I got a lot of feedback the last time I posted about how economists really have no idea what they are talking about. I have been saying for years that mortgage rates have very little effect on the housing market. I have said that expectation of future appreciation and eligibilty have much larger ...

I have posted about Reverse Mortgages for co-ops before and I do understand that co-ops are pretty much a New York issue as there aren't too many of them outside of New York City. Never the less, I feel it is important to discuss how so many people are getting screwed by the government. The Housi...

Yesterday, I posted about Reverse Mortgage rates. I have posted many times about regular "forward" mortgage rates before and my opinion remains that they have very little effect on the housing market. I have gotten a lot of feedback disagreeing with me in the past, but the proof is all around us....

Unfortunately, despite what is going on in the news. there has been something problematic going on in the Reverse Mortgage world. The main buyer of Reverse Mortgages is and has been Fannie Mae. Fannie has been raising the minimum margin that lenders charge borrowers. This means that rates have be...