It's no secret that the stock market is down some 30% over the last 12 months. With so many seniors with money in the market I'm starting to get a bunch of calls from a subset of this group.



What they want is to tap into the equity in their home with a reverse mortgage. I'm not one of those loan officers that believe a reverse mortgage is good for everyone. It's not.

Most importantly they must have a desire to stay in their home for an extended period of time. This is vital because the cost to get a reverse mortgage is not conducive for a short term mortgage

The longer one holds a reverse mortgage, or in a practical sense, stays in the home the cheaper the mortgage becomes on an annualized basis.

It's pretty clear to see a certain level of panic as some of these folks have lost much of their all important nest egg. Now they want money to reinvest.

One of the teasers the reverse mortgage has for these folks right now is very low interest rates on the adjustable rate option.

For the week of January 6 to January 12 the rate on the adjustable is well below 4%. If we look at this loan over the last 15 years, it's average is around 6%.

I'm in the business of getting people reverse mortgages and feel it is my duty to help my customers make good choices. One thing they should be doing is to make sure their next investment returns more than it costs.

They cannot expect the low rates to hold up forever and must consider these rates driving up to their average level.

It is true that most economists and people in the know (perhaps you've seen them on Fox) feel rates will continue to hang out at a low level for some time.

Big business wants liquidity in the market place. Low rates do that. So, it looks like a good interest rate environment for a while.

I have no doubt rates will be down for some time, but it I have to wonder how much some of these borrowers are thinking through the costs as opposed to the benefits.

Whichever investment the borrowers choose should have very good returns to not only beat the interest rate on the money, but the cost of getting the reverse mortgage in the first place.