The Reverse Mortgage Inheritance Strategy

Most families treat a reverse mortgage as a last resort. Used properly, it is one of the most powerful financial tools your parents own.

Somebody in your family has raised the idea, which makes it your decision as much as theirs. And you are being asked what you think before anyone has told you how it actually works.

This book is written for you, not for them.

Your parents' house is the largest asset they hold and the only one earning nothing. It does not compound. It pays no dividend. It sits on a street doing nothing while every other asset in the family works. A reverse mortgage is the instrument that puts it to work, and used at the right time it can fund their retirement, keep your own money where it belongs, and leave more behind rather than less.

Most families never get that far, because they answer the wrong question. They ask whether a reverse mortgage is good or bad. The real question is quieter. Whose money pays for your parents' next ten years, theirs or yours?

Inside: what a reverse mortgage actually is, and who owns the house. Why an unused credit line grows every year, untouched. What it does to your inheritance, with the arithmetic done in full. How drawing on the house can protect a retirement portfolio. The twelve month rule that ends the loan, and what starts the clock. What it costs, every fee, with no softening. Five situations where the answer is no. Twelve questions for the loan officer, and three answers that should end the call. Exactly what heirs must do, week by week, with the real deadlines.

Phil Ganz is President of Next Wave Mortgage and has helped thousands of families through the biggest financial decision of their lives. He wrote the chapter on when not to do this first.

Used deliberately, the house pays for what is coming. Ignored, it gets spent anyway, and nobody chose it.