Reverse Mortgages can be a Retiree’s Saving Grace
The lack of focus on home equity in retirement income planning is nothing short of a complete failure to properly plan and utilize all available retirement assets, Forbes contributing writer Jamie Hopkins wrote this week.
“This needs to change immediately because strategic uses of home equity, especially reverse mortgages, could save many people from financial failure in retirement and help stem the overall retirement income crisis facing Americans,” wrote Hopkins in his article, entitled Reverse Mortgages can be a Retiree’s Saving Grace.
He included a quote from Nobel Prize-Winning economist Robert C. Menton, a finance professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, who recently stated, “Americans have wrongly steered clear of reverse mortgages.”
While there are countless reasons why an individual might seek out a reverse mortgage, Hopkins described four techniques in which reverse mortgages can be strategically used to improve a retirement income plan:
- Defer social security benefits
- Reduce sequence of returns risk
- Allow for Roth Conversions at a low tax rate
- Reduce retirement expenses and cash outflow
Download the article to read about these strategies in greater detail.
