Tag Archives: reverse
Reverse Mortgage Career – A Career With a Heart
In today’s political climate where everyone is looking for someone to blame for the economic downturn, they don’t want to let anyone think that the politicians forcing FNMA and lenders to make loans to people to who did not qualify might be the problem. They continue to look for the boogieman in the lowly Mortgage Brokers like they created the products and then asked the borrowers to lie about their income so they could make a loan.
It is time for everyone to admit to their share of the problem, these loans should not have been allowed by the government, the lenders or the investors buying these loans. The Brokers had to offer the products that were available and if they did not offer some other lender or Broker would.
Here is the rub, offering reverse mortgages allows the Broker to really make a difference in the life of a senior citizen but there is so much negative press that it is freaking out the people that should do this to the point that they are frozen with fear, they do nothing and then many lose their house or continue to just squeak out an existence.
My partner just met with a man in southern California that had a Turkey Farm that was very profitable for many years so he decided to reward himself with a beautiful home now worth $ 2,500,000 even after prices have dropped. The problem is that just after he built this wonderful home the company buying the Turkeys moved their processing plants to the Midwest to escape the high cost of doing business in California. Now this man who has done so well is on the verge of losing everything because he does not have the cash flow to support his home mortgage. We were able to go in and do a Jumbo Reverse Mortgage and save this man from certain disaster, what a great feeling this gives us to be the only ones in this man life offering a solution instead of asking him to sacrifice or pay out more of his now scarce money.
I feel like we are saving seniors from certain destruction and yet we have to put up with the likes of Hilary Clinton saying the problems in the economy are the Brokers fault, really Hilary, when was the last time you actually helped a senior citizen keep their home? The service we are providing really is a labor of love, our industry has gotten harder as home values drop, we have to tell seniors that they may lose their home because they waited too long and their home value is not enough to solve their problems.
The positives still out weigh the negatives in our industry, keeping a senior in their home gives you a great sense of satisfaction. Providing the money needed for these folks to continue to provide for themselves allows the Loan Officer to give real service to those in need, not just focusing on making money. This is a business for those who like that special feeling you get when you help another in need, if you can see yourself making a living helping seniors live a better life then you should consider getting into a reverse mortgage career.
FBI Reverse Mortgage Warning
The FBI recently released a Fraud Warning that reverse mortgages are being used to target scams involving seniors. This is the real thing, most news stories talk about how the senior is being taken advantage by the lender or loan officer when in fact most of those cases turn out to be that the borrower was talked into putting the funds into an annuity or some other investment. In these cases the borrower never loses money they just limit their access.
In this case the FBI warning points out the real problem is that Builders, Realtors and others talk the senior into buying a house with nothing down and it is really a property flipping scam that enriches the person flipping the property. It is totally illegal and I have had one case where I had to turn a senior and their builder friend into the FBI and the HUD Inspector General. My company has had several other inquires but we can tell very quickly now when it is a scam.
The key strategy is to recruit the senior to become a party to the scam and cheat the lender out of money that goes to the person doing the flipping, the benefit to the senior is that they are told they will end up with the home for free. The scam artist are even running ads and putting on seminars saying that you can get a home for free.
The unfortunate part to this whole thing is that it will give a product that does so much good for so many honest senior citizens another black eye. The reverse mortgage is helping many older American’s to keep their homes and to live more comfortable lives; these types of scams are run by a few and end up creating problems for the majority of people that really need it.
If you know someone that is 62 or older and they are either thinking about getting a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage or you think they could live a more fulfilling life if they got one, help them do some research and find a reputable lender to work with. My firm is in 22 States and of course we would love to help but there are many good quality lenders you can work with. Call a few and see if they will give you specific details over the phone, if they won’t you should keep looking, we give complete quotes and detailed information to folks even if they are in a State we cannot lend in.
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