Many people believe that you have fairly limited financial resources once you hit your golden years. You may opt to use your pension or social security to pay for your monthly expenses. But there are also other resources that you may tap into. These are home- equity loans and reverse mortgages. Both options do allow you to use a portion of your real estate equity without selling or moving out of your house. These are two different loan products. However, tapping into this resource would require you to understand each of them better to get a clue on which one is better for you.
A reverse mortgage works differently than your regular home mortgage. Instead of your home mortgage payment going to your lender, a lender makes the monthly payments to you based on your residential real estate's value. You may still hold on to your title through the whole process, but the loan will become overdue once your payment goes delinquent. The lender will then have the authority to sell the property to recover the payment that they've made to you. Any property equity that will be left will go to your heir.
However, if both spouses are included in the home mortgage, the bank doesn't have any authority to sell the house not unless the surviving spouse passes away. So couples should therefore look into these things before they agree to a reverse home mortgage.
Just like a reverse home mortgage, you can use your home’s equity to get a home equity mortgage and get some cash. It's almost the same with a primary home mortgage that it's sometimes called as a second home mortgage.
Unlike a reverse mortgage, the mortgage interest that you pay on both HELOCs and home- equity loans are tax- deductible for mortgages that are at least $100,000. However, your real estate property continues to be owned by you and your family. The only thing that you have to remember is that you will be using your home as collateral so your house will be at risk if you get delinquent on your home mortgage.
There are alternative ways on how to get funds even if you've already reached your retirement age. You just have to be open about it and always make sure that you have a back- up plan. Keep in mind that you'll be using your house as collateral so you can end up losing your house if you default.
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