Reverse Mortgage Guide

Who would you trust if you were going to get a reverse mortgage?

Forget about degrees and credentials, says the 2007 Financial Freedom Senior Sentiment Survey, the fourth annual survey from Financial Freedom, the nation’s largest originator of reverse mortgages.

“Being an expert in a field just isn’t enough,” says the company, “Professionals can’t rely on their company’s brand name or a personal referral if they hope to establish trust with a senior. While important, these factors ranked less important than seniors’ perception of professionals’ good character or ethics.”

“The survey,” says the company, “found that seniors seem to be less trusting of financial professionals in general, especially those whose compensation is tied to commissions. When asked how much they trust the financial professionals with whom they work, only 23% indicated that they strongly trusted their professionals and that was because of long experience with them. The majority (63%) of seniors indicated a lack of trust in financial professionals with 33% responding that they neither trust nor distrust and 30% responding they only somewhat trust financial professionals. Although the amount of trust varies a lot by profession, this is illustrated by seniors’ ranking of financial and other professionals on a provided list.

“Looking at just financial professionals, 53% of seniors indicated they trust, somewhat trust or very strongly trust their local bank rep, followed by their accountant (44%), and health care rep (38%). Realtors, stock brokers and mortgage brokers – all of whom work off commissions, finished last.”

The breakdown of financial professionals is below:

• Local bank representative, 53%

• Accountant, 44%

• Insurance rep, 35%

• Lawyer, 33%

• Fee based financial advisor/planner, 30%

• Realtor, 25%

• Commission based stock broker/ financial consultant, 21%

• Mortgage broker, 18%

“When asked about other professions with whom they interact,” said the lender, “seniors indicated that they trust doctors, nurses and veterinarians the most. Politicians finished last, garnering just 5% of seniors’ trust.”

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 10:06 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.