Fees on a $100,000 loan, based on a $200,000 home, can total $10,000. Because the fees are typically wrapped into the mortgage, they compound at interest rates that can rise over time. Homeowners who need cash could be better off selling and moving to less expensive quarters.
“The profits are significant, the oversight is minimal, and greed could work to the disadvantage of seniors who should be protected by government programs and not targeted as prey,” said Dave Stevens, CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association until last year and a commissioner for the Federal Housing Administration in the Obama administration.
Academics represent a new face for an industry that’s long relied on aging celebrity pitchmen. The late Fred Thompson, a U.S. senator and Law & Order actor, represented American Advisors Group, the industry’s biggest player. These days, the same company leans on actor Tom Selleck.
“Just like you, I thought reverse mortgages had to have some catch,” Selleck says in an online video. “Then I did some homework and found out it’s not any of that. It’s not another way for a bank to get your house.”
Michael Douglas, in his Golden Globe-winning performance on the Netflix series The Kominsky Method, satirizes such pitches. His financially desperate character, an acting teacher, quits filming a reverse mortgage commercial because he can’t stomach the script.
In 2016 administrative proceedings, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau accused American Advisors, as well as two other companies, of running deceptive ads. Without admitting or denying the allegations, American Advisors agreed to add more caveats to its advertising and pay a $400,000 fine.
Company spokesman Ryan Whittington said the company has since made “significant investments” in compliance. Reverse mortgages are “highly regulated, viable financial tools,” and all customers must undergo third-party counseling before buying one, he said.
The FHA has backed more than 1 million such reverse mortgages. Homeowners pay into an insurance fund an upfront fee equal to 2 percent of a home’s value, as well as an additional half a percentage point every year.
After the last housing crash, taxpayers had to make up a $1.7 billion shortfall because of reverse mortgage losses. Over the past five years, the government has been tightening rules, such as requiring homeowners to show they can afford tax and insurance payments.
In response to public concerns, Shelley Giordino, then an executive at reverse mortgage company Security 1 Lending, co-founded the Funding Longevity Task Force in 2012. It later became affiliated with the Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania-based American College of Financial Services.