Reverse Mortgages Lowering the Number of Foreclosures
Foreclosure filings have been going up incrementally in the United States since the year 2006. There has been an increase of more than one hundred percent since this year, in the number of filings for foreclosure.
RealtyTrac released a Foreclosure market report recently in January of 2009 where it showed that the states of California, Arizona and Florida were the states with the highest numbers of foreclosures during the year 2008. Foreclosure activity in California increased more than 400% since the year 2006. This was followed closely by Florida and Arizona, in that order. Other states with top foreclosures were Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Michigan, Georgia, Nevada and New Jersey.
Foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies are continuing to rise every day. Even during these gloomy days hope comes to senior home owners in the form of a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) or reverse mortgage. If you have got a reverse mortgage then you need not be worried about increasing foreclosure rates and about the ability to make mortgage payments. No monthly payments are required with a HECM reverse mortgage.
Senior home owners can continue to remain in their homes for life and do not have to worry about making another mortgage payment again. All they need to do is to pay the taxes regularly and keep their home owners insurance current and paid.
To qualify for a reverse mortgage, borrowers need to be 62 years or older, reside in the property that is their primary residence and must not currently be in bankruptcy, these are the only qualifying criteria.
So, in these tough economic times, there is hope for seniors looking for cash to spend and that comes from their own homes.
Reverse mortgage is a useful estate planning tool that banks and financial institutions ought to offer making available to seniors. It’s a great security for them to ensure the delivery of their pensions in the amounts they thought forthcoming.