HUD WARNS OF REVERSE MORTGAGE SCAMS

The Housing and Urban Development department is cracking down on reverse mortgage scams that charge senior citizens thousands of dollars for information and advice that HUD provides free.

Reverse mortgages allow homeowners age 62 and up to supplement their retirement income by borrowing on the value of their homes. Loans are not repaid until the owner dies and the house is sold.

In the scams, companies promote themselves as "estate planners" and contact seniors by phone or mail offering to help them get reverse mortgages for a fee of 6% to 10% of the amount borrowed.

Anyone interested in reverse mortgages should contact their local banker instead. Reverse mortgage law requires lenders to explain how reverse mortgages work and help fill out the paperwork. HUD can help provide this counseling for free.

Great warning about Reverse mortgages. People should always exercise caution, most especially when it comes to risking your home, and always try to go through your local bank or lender. You want to be able to speak with another human being face to face about these things, and your local bank isn't likely to fast talk you, their reputation would suffer if they started hurting the locals.

About Inverse Mortgages: They are a creature of a different color. RED and that means stay away from them. The only company offering such a service is one called Brixdale. They don't deliver on the claims, it's a ponzi of sorts, it's overpriced and not even the marketers are making any money worth writing home about, by promoting it. Several of us got together and wrote to Brixdale headquarters with questions that everyone had on their mind, ranging from the service itself to marketing. The answers were very enlightening though I'm sure the company didn't intentionally mean to expose themselves in such a negative manner.

http://www.scam.com/showpost.php?p=31947&postcount=964

http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?p=31356#post31356

Brixdale is not the bi-weekly plan that they say they are. Any benefit you might have gotten for making one payment early is overshawdowed by the extra payment you make to Brixdale as your fee for using their service. If you want to pay your mortgage off early, adding an extra $100.00 a month just on the principal can knock up to 9 years or more off the length of your mortgage, resulting in thousands of dollars in savings. This little gizmo at this link can help you figure out exactly what you can save.

http://www.paymap.com/paymap/mortgage_data.jsp