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When You Don't Have To Pay Back Your Mortgage
By: Jenny Lane
A home loan that you do not have to pay back for as long as you’re alive or for
as long as you live there? That sounds too good to be true, but that’s what
reverse mortgages do.
A reverse mortgage is a loan that you make where you do not have to pay back
anything for as long as you still possess that property you have purchased.
Reverse mortgages provide you with cash which you can use for other investments.
By turning the value of your home into cash, reverse mortgages gives you
virtually unlimited funds without having to move and even without repaying the
loan every month.
There are several ways to give you the cash from reverse mortgages. You can get
cash from a reverse mortgage all at once or in a single lump sum. With a reverse
mortgage, you can also opt to receive a regular monthly cash advance.
In addition, a reverse mortgage can offer you cash as a “creditline” account.
This creditline account from a reverse mortgage will let you get the amount of
money you want whenever the need arises. And if none of these methods suits you,
reverse mortgage cash may be given to you using any combination of the
abovementioned methods.
Whether or not you want your cash from a reverse mortgage be paid to you in lump
or in installment, the main thing is that you do not have to pay anything back
until you die, sell your home, or permanently move. Reverse mortgages usually
cater to homeowners who are 62 years old and older.
Reverse Mortgage vs. Other Home Loans
In most other loans, a systematic check on your income and assets is done in
order to pre-qualify for the mortgage. This is done as an assurance to the
lender that you will be able to afford the monthly payments tied with a loan.
Since reverse mortgages do not involve any monthly payments, you not have to go
through these tedious prequalification procedures. Qualifying for a reverse
mortgage is easy and hassle-free. There is no minimum income required and no
monthly repayments. And what’s more, with a reverse mortgage, you do not stand
the chance of losing your home.
The downside to a reverse mortgage
In every story, there is always the other side of the coin. While reverse
mortgages have their advantages, they also have a downside. As you know already,
reverse mortgages do not require monthly paybacks. This means that with reverse
mortgages, you are actually taking out equity from your home and turning it into
cash. This does not bode well for your debt or your home equity for that matter.
Here’s how it works. Other mortgages require a person to make a down payment
when buying a home. As years go on, they use their income to pay back the money
they borrowed in making the purchase. This decreases their debt and increases
the value of their home.
With a reverse mortgage, everything works in the reverse. You have your home.
You convert its value into cash. And then you take out that cash every now and
then, thereby increasing your debt and reducing your home equity.
Of course, this is not always the case with reverse mortgages. If your home
value grows rapidly or you only one loan on your home, there’s every chance that
your equity could increase over time.
About the Author:
Jenny Lane is a banking specialist who writes on related financing and banking
industry topics. Find out more about the latest in banking industry at
http://bankingtrends.com
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