Reverse Mortgage Guide

National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association has just released its second-quarter study of senior housing. In a release, NRML reports that:

The value of homes owned by Americans age 62 and over increased slightly during the second quarter of 2007, but senior home equity declined slightly, according to the Reverse Mortgage Market Index.

Published quarterly National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA), in conjunction with the Hollister Group, LLC, the RMMI measures the potential growth of reverse mortgage market opportunity.

The RMMI showed a slight increase in senior home values to $5.09 trillion in the second quarter from $5.07 trillion in the first quarter, but declined in outstanding senior home equity—$4.28 trillion from $4.29 trillion. The 0.1% quarterly decline in senior home equity outstanding was driven by a slightly higher increase in the estimate of existing mortgage debt held and by Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) and Federal Reserve mild downward adjustments to first quarter data. The RMMI declined overall to 205.1 from 205.3.

“There continues to be a substantial amount of home equity in homes headed by consumers aged 62 and over,” said Peter Bell, President of NRMLA. “We fully expect the reverse mortgage products to continue to take hold as previously untapped home equity value intersects with the aging of the population over the next five to ten years.”

On average, the home equity held by consumers age 62 and over is $230,000 and the aggregate amount of home value held increased by $12 billion during the second quarter. “Despite the decreasing consumer confidence and mixed economic indicators observed in the late spring and early summer, the reverse mortgage market continues to remain substantial both in size and in opportunity”, said Susanna Kondracki, a Managing Director with the Hollister Group.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Reverse Mortgage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.