Surreal Mortgages

The company Abbey Mortgages says that they do the following:

…our mortgage search system covers all of the leading financial sources, including all of the main banks and mortgage providers, to find the best deal available from the whole market. We can also arrange a mortgage if you are looking to buy a property, either for the first time or if you are just moving home.

http://www.abbeyremortgages.co.uk/

I found them through a link that someone had posted on a forum. The person who posted the link seemed to be an employee of Abbey Mortgages, who was pretending to be a satisfied customer. From the long, descriptive link that they left behind, though, it was obvious that they had some sort of connection with Abbey Mortgages.

Anyhow, they are in the UK, and I live in the US, so I wouldn’t consider them regardless of this.

HomeHug.com Financial Services is a company that connects people to their network of real estate agents and mortgage lenders.

http://www.homehug.com/

Personally, I might try them, but I would shop around directly with the mortgage lenders as well. HomeHug.com probably takes a commission, as the middleman, or they probably add extra fees that you might not need to pay if you deal directly with a lender yourself.

Brixdale is a company offering reverse mortgages. They refer to the reverse mortgage on their website as an “inverse mortgage”, just so you know.

Unfortunately you can’t actually view anything on their website unless you have a Referral Code. That makes them pretty suspicious, in my opinion.

http://www.brixdale.com/

I would never trust them with my mortgage.

A mortgage has two parts, according to Wikipedia:

1. A pledge (the mortgage itself).

2. The promissory note. Basically, evidence that you promise to pay a debt.

Mortgages let you buy property “without paying the full value upfront,” according to Wikipedia.

Without mortgages, property would be much too expensive for anyone but the extemely wealthy to buy. With mortgages, anyone can buy property, as long as they are approved by the mortgage lender.

Approval is another story, however.

While researching reverse mortgages, I encountered a few life expectancy charts. Some were referred to as “annuity mortality” charts.

They were supposed to be useful tools for deciding whether a reverse mortgage would make sense for someone.

According to them, if you are under 70, it’s probably not a good idea to get a reverse mortgage because you have too much of your life left. The articles accompanying these charts suggest that if you’re in your 70s or 80s, you don’t have as much of your life left, so a reverse mortgage may be more appropriate.

What if I live to be over 100? I certainly hope that I do.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it?

Well, that’s what you are doing when you take out a reverse mortgage. Think about it before you act.

In an article on Real Estate Journal, the risk is described:

“A lot of people who take out reverse mortgages can’t qualify for a forward mortgage,” says Ken Scholen, head of AARP Foundation’s reverse-mortgage education project. “They just don’t have the income.”

According to the AARP website and Wikipedia, there are four ways of getting the cash:

1. A big lump sum check.

2. Monthly checks.

3. With a “creditline” account. So you decide when and how much cash you get.

4. Some combination of the above three methods.

Reverse mortgages are mortgages that you don’t have to pay until you move to a new home, or until you die.

Having a reverse mortgage means that you take out money as a loan against your home.

So basically it’s free cash for you, assuming that you’re not going to move, and assuming that your kids are doing just fine and could afford a little less inheritance when you die.

The AARP website has a section devoted to reverse mortgages:
http://www.aarp.org/money/revmort/

AARP is an organization for retired persons. People in retirement are supposedly the best candidates for reverse mortgages.