Written By: Lucy Delgadillo, Cindy R. Stokes, and Jean M. Lown

This study describes demographics of clients seeking a Reverse Mortgage (RM) in a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) approved counseling center to understand why seniors seek RMs and to document how counseled seniors who followed through received their RM funds. Their main reasons for seeking a reverse mortgage were to pay off an existing mortgage, increase income, and pay off consumer debt. Only about half of the sample who received the mandatory pre-purchase counseling decided to obtain the reverse mortgage. Implications for practitioners, including the high cost of RMs, the decreasing median age of an RM mortgagor, and the increasing demand of this lending product are presented along with updates on major changes in HUD reverse mortgage regulations.

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