Turbulence seen for reverse mortgages

The reverse mortgage, which has proven very popular with the retirement-age crowd, has come under assault from two diverse groups: the government and scam artists.

Now I'm not going to argue with anyone who tries to say the government and scam artists are two sides of the same coin. That seems a bit mean.

After all, the government attempts (or is supposed to attempt) to do what's best for the consumer and the country, although sometimes the net effect of legislation appears to be as wounding to some people as theft through fraudulent practices.

In regard to reverse mortgages, the government is, indeed, trying to protect their availability through conservative fiscal practices. Unfortunately, it could end up neutering them instead.

A reverse mortgage, which is available only to those 62 and older, allows homeowners to use the equity that has built up in a residence. In effect, the homeowner gets a loan in the form of a lump sum or multiple payments. Repayment, with interest, is deferred until the owner dies, or goes into aged care, and the home is sold. Or, in a worst-case scenario, if the homeowner fails to pay property taxes or homeowners insurance.

After being introduced with the new decade, reverse mortgages didn't really gain any traction in the marketplace until 2005, when just under 50,000 were written. Growth came quickly since then, with totals surpassing 100,000 in 2007. The Wall Street Journal predicts the total number of federally insured reverse mortgages could run as high as 150,000 this year.

Here's the problem: About 99 percent of reverse mortgages are FHA-insured. In scrutinizing the reverse mortgage loan outlook for fiscal year 2010 (which began Oct. 1, 2009), the Federal Housing Administration and Office of Management and Budget felt the reverse mortgage market -- which had previously always paid its own way -- would run about 130,000 loans (a more conservative estimate).

And the expectation was that over the life of those loans there would be losses in the range of $800 million.

That, of course, would mean an additional subsidy to cover the expected loss or, in the thinking of the Congress, to adjust the program so that it doesn't require any further dollars.

Two questions arise: Is an additional subsidy necessary? And what would it mean to the efficacy of the reverse mortgage?

"The FHA and OMB did some calculations on what they believe the volume of originations will be in the next fiscal year and what they expect the behavior of the loans to be -- most importantly, what will happen to housing prices," explains Jeff Lewis, chairman of Atlanta-based Generation Mortgage Co., the largest independent reverse mortgage originator in the country.

"Presumably, if housing prices are weak next year, that means loans got originated at too high a loan-to-value (ratio) and it would make the loans less creditworthy. We don't know what they used as far as their assumptions, but it would appear their estimates are very draconian about housing prices."

To make the loans more creditworthy, the U.S. House and Senate are considering reducing the amount of loan value that can be pulled from a reverse mortgage by 5 percent to 10 percent.

That could be a problem. ...CONTINUED

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