Top 12 reasons to consider a reverse mortgage

12. You can continue to live in your house. You need not move to a new place where you might have to find a new doctor, a new barber/beautician, a new accountant, a new lawyer, a new stockbroker, new friends. Along with new restaurants, new stores, new garage mechanics. You also won’t have to learn new routes, new streets, new shortcut.

11. You can receive cash – to pay your bills, to improve your lifestyle. More meals out; more shows; more trips; new, better clothes. Yu may be able to afford gifts for your children and grandchildren.

10. To qualify – no income levels, no minimum credit score, no minimum assets, no medical tests. (But you cannot have large debts apart from a reasonable mortgage on your house.)

9. You can decide in what form to receive your money. A lump sum to pay debts? A monthly income for as long as you live in the house? A line of credit so that you never have to pay interest on any money unless you withdraw it? A combination of these choices?

8. You need not make any payments until the home is no longer your principal residence.

7. The money is untaxed.

6. You can get free – or at least inexpensive – advice from an informed, objective source; a HUD – approved counselor. There are other protections for the borrower, too – interest rates have lifetime limits on them, you get three business days to change your mind, you are told in advance what the closing costs may be, there is no prepayment penalty, and the government guarantees that you will receive your money.

5. With the most popular type of reverse mortgage, the HECM, your credit line automatically goes up.

4. You or your heirs don’t ever have to sell the house. You or your heirs can use other assets to pay off your debt.

3. You can diversify your portfolio. If most of your wealth was in your house, putting a little of your equity into stocks and bonds makes sense.

2. You can use the money for almost whatever you want. To pay off your mortgage, to take an around-the-world tour. It’s your money.

1. Even if the value of the house turns out to be less than the money you borrowed, neither you nor your heirs will owe the bank a penny. A reverse mortgage is a “nonrecourse” loan.