Reverse Mortgage Guide

A lot of attention is paid to national foreclosure rates, and properly so. That said, there are significant differences among major metro areas.

At first this does not seem like a reverse mortgage issue, but some an unknown number of senior homeowners the foreclosure numbers have great relevance: The reason? One way to stave off a foreclosure is to refinance with a reverse mortgage and exchange big and growing monthly payments for no monthly costs for interest and principal.

However, to make reverse mortgages work you need equity, the more the better. Thus, if you are in a community with a low foreclosure rate there is less pressure to push down home prices — and thus less pressure to push down equity.

RealtyTrac.com has now come out with a study of the 100 metro areas with the steepest foreclosure rates. This is one list you would like to avoid. That said, there is a substantial difference between foreclosure rates for the leading metro areas and those at the bottom of the list. Detroit, Stockton and Las Vegas are leading the list, but it’s important to say that an area can be on the list and still have a low foreclosure level — for instance, Greenville, SC is #100 and has a foreclosure rate that is about 1/6th of the Detroit level.

The full list can be found at:

RealtyTrac.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 9:45 am 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.