Latest / The Bridge Austin / Mortgage Talk with Mark Hairston - Is It A Good Time To Buy?
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Mortgage Talk with Mark Hairston, the program that
- 0:05Speaker 1: not only talks about mortgages, taxes, and interest rates, but
- 0:09Speaker 1: Mark and his guests talk real estate trends and your home.
- 0:12Speaker 1: He also answers your mortgage questions to help you make
- 0:15Speaker 1: the right financing or refinancing decisions. Now, here's Mark Hairston.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Happy day, everybody, and welcome back to Mortgage Talk with Mark.
- 0:25Speaker 2: And today, we're going to talk about a couple things
- 0:27Speaker 2: around the mortgage space that... some news, some stats, some
- 0:31Speaker 2: more information, questions, some case studies, etc. But before we
- 0:35Speaker 2: did that, I want to kind of recognize the fact
- 0:37Speaker 2: that today is Friday, November, not November, September the 11th.
- 0:40Speaker 2: So 25 years ago, of course, was that tragedy in
- 0:43Speaker 2: New York City. And I was remembering that and just
- 0:46Speaker 2: wanted to honor those folks who died in the buildings,
- 0:50Speaker 2: in the planes, the first responders, several thousand people perished
- 0:54Speaker 2: that day. We just want to remember that, you know,
- 0:57Speaker 2: it was such a tragic thing. But But 25 years
- 1:00Speaker 2: is hard to believe. But I just want to kind
- 1:02Speaker 2: of throw that out there. So let's get to work
- 1:06Speaker 2: here a little bit about the mortgage space. Some information
- 1:11Speaker 2: about housing right now. Let me get to some notes
- 1:15Speaker 2: I took on my phone. Give me just a second here.
- 1:17Speaker 2: The fact of the matter is, listings are up. As
- 1:20Speaker 2: of September 22nd, listings are up to almost 17,000 listings
- 1:21Speaker 2: in the area. in the MLS in the Austin area,
- 1:28Speaker 2: which is, I'm not sure that's a record, but if
- 1:30Speaker 2: it's not, it's got to be close to a record.
- 1:32Speaker 2: So again, people ask me, hey, Mark, is it a
- 1:34Speaker 2: good time to buy? And that's always a loaded question
- 1:37Speaker 2: because it's hard to say. We don't know because the
- 1:40Speaker 2: market's off about 25% from the highs of 2022 over
- 1:43Speaker 2: a four-year period. We've had a gradual decline of prices.
- 1:47Speaker 2: And so usually the old adage is to buy low.
- 1:50Speaker 2: And I think we're either at the bottom or we're very,
- 1:53Speaker 2: very close to the bottom. Having said that, I will
- 1:56Speaker 2: say it's a really good time to negotiate. Most contracts
- 1:59Speaker 2: I'm seeing these days have a lot of seller concessions,
- 2:02Speaker 2: but be their closing costs paid or buy-down rates, things
- 2:06Speaker 2: like that, especially with the builders. So I don't usually
- 2:08Speaker 2: compete with new home builder lenders, but if you're looking
- 2:11Speaker 2: for some really good deals, I would maybe look at that.
- 2:14Speaker 2: But always call me. If you have any questions, always
- 2:16Speaker 2: call me at 512-789-6967. And I'd be happy to help
- 2:23Speaker 2: you any way I can on that. Let's see, the
- 2:26Speaker 2: other good news, and this is not brand new news,
- 2:28Speaker 2: but I want to remind you that the state legislature
- 2:31Speaker 2: has raised the homestead exemption from $ 100, 000 to $ 140, 000. And
- 2:38Speaker 2: there's a bonus for seniors like myself. I just filed
- 2:41Speaker 2: a homestead exemption on a new property we purchased a
- 2:44Speaker 2: while back. And I get an additional.
- 2:47Speaker 3: $ 60, 000.
- 2:47Speaker 2: So if you're a senior in a homesteaded property, you
- 2:51Speaker 2: have a $ 200, 000 deduction from the assessed value for taxes.
- 2:57Speaker 2: So that's really good news. And that one is fairly new.
- 3:02Speaker 2: And then finally, this is, again, not brand new news,
- 3:04Speaker 2: but I want to remind you that normally we've been
- 3:06Speaker 2: talking about reverse mortgages. And the traditional reverse mortgage, there's
- 3:10Speaker 2: a lot of different options these days. We're going to
- 3:12Speaker 2: talk about some of the case studies around some clients
- 3:14Speaker 2: I've helped recently. But the traditional loan is called the
- 3:18Speaker 2: HECM loan, which is a home equity conversion mortgage guaranteed
- 3:21Speaker 2: and insured by FHA. And that loan's been around since,
- 3:25Speaker 2: I think, 86, 87, somewhere in there when Reagan was
- 3:28Speaker 2: still president. Now, that has a cap. And the cap
- 3:31Speaker 2: today is $ 1, 249, 000, which means that's the most.
- 3:32Speaker 3: That FHA will insure.
- 3:33Speaker 2: So even if your property is worth $ 2 or $ 3 million,
- 3:44Speaker 2: and you want to get a reverse mortgage using that product,
- 3:47Speaker 2: the most they will insure is $ 1, 249, 000, which still is
- 3:51Speaker 2: a lot better than it used to be. So it's
- 3:52Speaker 2: still plenty of money. So let's kind of talk about
- 3:55Speaker 2: some case studies. Actually, some questions. I get a lot
- 3:58Speaker 2: of questions from either real estate agents or prospects or
- 4:03Speaker 2: sometimes even online. People will ask questions online or sometimes
- 4:07Speaker 2: from this show.
- 4:08Speaker 3: And one of the questions....
- 4:10Speaker 2: Is around if you currently, if you're a senior and
- 4:12Speaker 2: you have a mortgage, and I think about two-thirds of seniors,
- 4:17Speaker 2: maybe not that much, but about a half percent, about
- 4:19Speaker 2: 50% of seniors still have a current mortgage.
- 4:22Speaker 3: Like myself, I have a mortgage. I just talked about it.
- 4:24Speaker 2: So if we have a mortgage, can you get a
- 4:27Speaker 2: reverse mortgage? And the fact of the matter is you can.
- 4:30Speaker 2: And I'll give you an example. I had a client
- 4:32Speaker 2: call me by referral from a real estate agent I know.
- 4:35Speaker 2: And this gentleman is 72 or 73 years old. He
- 4:38Speaker 2: lives in a duplex in South Austin. And he called me.
- 4:41Speaker 2: He said, Mark, I've got a mortgage, but I want
- 4:44Speaker 2: to pull out some additional money. Now, the problem is
- 4:47Speaker 2: in Texas, it's a strange rule in Texas. You cannot
- 4:50Speaker 2: do a HELOC, which is a home equity line of credit,
- 4:53Speaker 2: or a cash-out traditional Texas cash-out loan on a duplex,
- 4:56Speaker 2: even if you live there. Oddly enough, you can if
- 4:59Speaker 2: it's an investment property, but you can't if you live there.
- 5:03Speaker 3: It's a homestead.
- 5:03Speaker 2: So that was a problem because he wanted to get
- 5:05Speaker 2: some money out. He had plenty of equity. He only
- 5:07Speaker 2: owed about $ 100, 000, but he had about $ 500, 000 in equity.
- 5:10Speaker 2: He said that my bank wouldn't do it. So my
- 5:12Speaker 2: agent told me to call you. So I said, look,
- 5:15Speaker 2: what I'm going to do is show you some options
- 5:17Speaker 2: on a reverse mortgage. He'd never heard of it, which
- 5:19Speaker 2: is a little surprising because it's been around a long time.
- 5:21Speaker 2: Most people have at least heard the term reverse mortgage
- 5:24Speaker 2: or HECM. And I explained it to him. I showed
- 5:27Speaker 2: him some, I illustrated two different types of loans. One
- 5:31Speaker 2: was this HECM, which I said, what we can do
- 5:34Speaker 2: is we can free up some cash flow. He needed
- 5:37Speaker 2: some cash and some cash flow. Things have gotten expensive.
- 5:40Speaker 2: He thought he was in a pretty good position to retire.
- 5:43Speaker 2: He has rent from the other side of the property, obviously,
- 5:46Speaker 2: which is always going to be rented in that area.
- 5:49Speaker 2: And he's got some social security, a small pension, and
- 5:52Speaker 2: a little bit of money in the markets. But he
- 5:55Speaker 2: wanted to free up some cash because he didn't want
- 5:57Speaker 2: to move. He could have sold the property, obviously, and
- 6:00Speaker 2: netted $ 400, 000 or $ 500, 000. But that was not his goal.
- 6:03Speaker 2: The goal was to stay there. as long as he
- 6:05Speaker 2: possibly can. So I said, well, we can't do it
- 6:08Speaker 2: with a HELOC or a Texas cash out, but I
- 6:11Speaker 2: do have an option for you, which is this reverse.
- 6:12Speaker 2: And he loved the idea of, first of all, eliminating
- 6:16Speaker 2: his current mortgage payment. Although he had a 3% mortgage,
- 6:20Speaker 2: he was very proud of that. And he didn't want
- 6:22Speaker 2: to talk about removing that initially. He wanted to talk about,
- 6:26Speaker 2: but he also wanted some cash. I said, well, what
- 6:28Speaker 2: we can do, and this is a fairly new strategy,
- 6:31Speaker 2: we can do a second lien reverse mortgage, where he
- 6:35Speaker 2: could borrow $ 50, 000 or $ 75, 000 or $ 100, 000 as an example,
- 6:39Speaker 2: and he wouldn't have to pay that money back. Now,
- 6:41Speaker 2: he'd have to pay his first mortgage back because that's
- 6:43Speaker 2: the way that's when structured. But it'd free up some
- 6:45Speaker 2: cash for him to do other things. He said, I
- 6:47Speaker 2: really want to travel. I want to put a little
- 6:49Speaker 2: more money in the market. And so we talked about
- 6:53Speaker 2: that initially. That was a pretty good idea. But then
- 6:55Speaker 2: I showed him the HECM loan. I said, look, we
- 6:57Speaker 2: can eliminate Your current mortgage, you won't have a mortgage. Now,
- 7:01Speaker 2: the interest will accrue, of course, as we talked about that,
- 7:04Speaker 2: at 6.5%, not 3 that he's currently at. But that
- 7:07Speaker 2: frees up $ 1, 300 a month for him, which is significant.
- 7:12Speaker 2: I mean, that pays his taxes and insurance and utilities
- 7:15Speaker 2: and a lot of different things. Or he said, you know,
- 7:18Speaker 2: in three months, that's $ 5, 000 I will not have spent
- 7:22Speaker 2: on my mortgage payment. I could use that to travel
- 7:24Speaker 2: or take a long vacation or something like that. So,
- 7:28Speaker 2: and I said, in addition to that, in addition to
- 7:30Speaker 2: eliminating the mortgage, we're going to put you on another,
- 7:33Speaker 2: because of your equity position and age, $ 100, 000 for a
- 7:38Speaker 2: line of credit. And he thought that was wonderful. He
- 7:41Speaker 2: didn't really need all that money, but I said, if
- 7:43Speaker 2: you don't need it today, you may need it next
- 7:45Speaker 2: year in five years or 10 years. And by then
- 7:48Speaker 2: that line of credit will have grown to several hundred
- 7:49Speaker 2: thousand dollars. So he really liked that.
- 7:52Speaker 3: That's what we did.
- 7:52Speaker 2: So, um, And the other question, he said, can I
- 7:56Speaker 2: use the money to pay off debt? And the answer is,
- 7:58Speaker 2: of course you can. Now, they don't allow you to
- 8:00Speaker 2: bring your debt to closing to pay it off, but
- 8:02Speaker 2: they don't tell you what you can or cannot do
- 8:05Speaker 2: with the money. So he did have some credit card debts,
- 8:08Speaker 2: some unsecured debt, of course, high rates that he wanted
- 8:11Speaker 2: to eliminate. And the reverse mortgage was the best option
- 8:14Speaker 2: for that as well.
- 8:15Speaker 3: So that's what we did.
- 8:16Speaker 2: He was very pleased. And he even referred me a
- 8:18Speaker 2: couple of his friends, his girlfriends, as a matter of fact,
- 8:21Speaker 2: owns a home in Oak Hill, paid for. So we're
- 8:22Speaker 2: talking to her about a reverse mortgage. The other one is,
- 8:26Speaker 2: can the bank take my house if I have a reverse?
- 8:30Speaker 2: In other words, will the bank take title of the property?
- 8:33Speaker 2: That was a fear for a friend of mine's grandmother.
- 8:36Speaker 2: She let me speak with her grandmother. We haven't actually
- 8:39Speaker 2: done anything yet, but I think we will because she's
- 8:41Speaker 2: in a position, she's 89 years old, and she's in
- 8:45Speaker 2: a place where she's got a home paid for her,
- 8:47Speaker 2: worth about $ 300, 000, maybe a little bit more. We haven't
- 8:50Speaker 2: appraised it yet, but that's kind of what we're guessing.
- 8:53Speaker 2: Been there a long time, wants to age in place,
- 8:55Speaker 2: doesn't want to go to a retirement home, but she
- 8:57Speaker 2: does need some skilled nursing. She needs somebody to come
- 8:59Speaker 2: in every day or every other day to, you know,
- 9:01Speaker 2: help her with the basics, maybe bathing or cooking meals
- 9:04Speaker 2: or something like that. She gets around pretty good, but
- 9:07Speaker 2: she can't, she's not driving any longer. But anyway, the
- 9:09Speaker 2: point is she thought because of some, um, bad publicity
- 9:15Speaker 2: over the years that the bank, whoever does the loan
- 9:17Speaker 2: on a reverse will take title. I said, no, ma'am,
- 9:20Speaker 2: you'll always own the home. And here's the reason why,
- 9:22Speaker 2: because she has some property up, I think in Bertram
- 9:27Speaker 2: or Burnett, worth about a million dollars that she's selling.
- 9:30Speaker 2: It's like a small farm and it's on the market
- 9:33Speaker 2: for sale. But she doesn't have the money to take
- 9:36Speaker 2: care of the skilled nursing today. She's got about six
- 9:38Speaker 2: months of reserves left to make it. I said, we
- 9:41Speaker 2: can free up a line of credit that you can
- 9:43Speaker 2: use until that ranch sells and you're able to pay
- 9:48Speaker 2: this thing off and go back to no mortgage. This
- 9:51Speaker 2: will give you some breathing room for at least six
- 9:53Speaker 2: months or a year, however long it takes. And she
- 9:56Speaker 2: liked that idea. Again, we haven't signed it up, but
- 9:58Speaker 2: I think think she will probably pull the trigger on
- 10:02Speaker 2: that because she's going to be out of money here
- 10:03Speaker 2: pretty quick. And the family really doesn't. They can help,
- 10:06Speaker 2: of course, and they will if needed. But they have
- 10:09Speaker 2: their own lives and their own responsibilities around money. And
- 10:13Speaker 2: so we'll see what happens there. I'll let you know.
- 10:17Speaker 2: But that's a very common misconception. We've talked about that before.
- 10:20Speaker 2: But I want to kind of repeat things sometimes because
- 10:23Speaker 2: people learn, I think, by repetition. But nobody's going to
- 10:27Speaker 2: take title. You can do anything you want with your property.
- 10:29Speaker 3: You still own it.
- 10:29Speaker 2: It's just a mortgage. It's just a different structured loan
- 10:31Speaker 2: for seniors. That's really all it is. It's like a
- 10:34Speaker 2: line of credit that you don't have to pay back.
- 10:37Speaker 2: It's an option to pay back.
- 10:38Speaker 3: Eventually, you will.
- 10:39Speaker 2: And the rule around that, of course, is once you
- 10:42Speaker 2: leave the property, either pass away or Or if you
- 10:45Speaker 2: were to move and buy another property, you would have
- 10:47Speaker 2: to pay this one off within a year. Or if
- 10:51Speaker 2: you had to go to a retirement home, anytime you
- 10:54Speaker 2: leave the property permanently, you're going to have to pay
- 10:57Speaker 2: it off within a year. That's the rule. You can't
- 10:59Speaker 2: rent it out. So that's the, if you will, downside
- 11:02Speaker 2: to this kind of loan. Now, another question is, can
- 11:08Speaker 2: I use a reverse mortgage to buy another property? The
- 11:12Speaker 2: answer is yes and no. I've got a client of
- 11:15Speaker 2: mine who's got a lot of equity. He's got a
- 11:18Speaker 2: lot of money, matter of fact. But he said, look, Mark,
- 11:21Speaker 2: I've got $ 2 million sitting here, and I'm not going anywhere.
- 11:25Speaker 2: He lives in Westlake. He's got a great home. He's
- 11:27Speaker 2: been there for a long time. He's retired, but he's
- 11:29Speaker 2: young retired. He's 69 probably. And he says, hey, what
- 11:35Speaker 2: can I do? I said, well, you can get a
- 11:37Speaker 2: HELOC if you wanted to. He said, well, I'm pretty
- 11:41Speaker 2: much debt-free, and I really don't want any payments on anything.
- 11:43Speaker 2: I said, well, I have another solution. And I showed
- 11:47Speaker 2: him this reverse option. I said, look, we can get $ 500, 000
- 11:50Speaker 2: or approximately $ 500, 000 out.
- 11:52Speaker 3: Of your home.
- 11:53Speaker 2: And he wanted to leverage the money because it's just
- 11:56Speaker 2: sitting there. It's what we call debt equity. He realized that.
- 11:59Speaker 3: He's a smart guy.
- 11:59Speaker 2: And he went out and bought a duplex for about $ 500, 000,
- 12:06Speaker 2: a little bit less.
- 12:06Speaker 3: So he had a little cash left over.
- 12:09Speaker 2: But that's throwing off about almost $ 4, 000 a month in rents. So,
- 12:14Speaker 2: of course, you've got tax and insurance to pay, but
- 12:16Speaker 2: let's say he's netting $ 2, 500 or $ 2, 800 a month, and
- 12:20Speaker 2: he doesn't have to pay back the reverse. So he's
- 12:23Speaker 2: replacing some of his equity with a new asset that's
- 12:26Speaker 2: going to be appreciating over the next several years that
- 12:29Speaker 2: he can also leave to his kids. People are all,
- 12:32Speaker 2: a lot of times, all freaked out because I say, well,
- 12:35Speaker 2: what if I won't have enough equity to give them
- 12:38Speaker 2: my kids? I said, well, that could be true. I mean,
- 12:40Speaker 2: it very well could be true down the road. But
- 12:44Speaker 2: if you use it wisely, you're going to have maybe
- 12:46Speaker 2: more assets over here, either in the stock market or
- 12:49Speaker 2: real estate or life insurance premiums. I had one client
- 12:52Speaker 2: take a bunch of money out and buy a big
- 12:54Speaker 2: whole life policy, single premium life insurance policy for like
- 12:58Speaker 2: $ 2 million. I said, there's your kid's inheritance. He said, yeah,
- 13:01Speaker 2: you're right. Now I can go have fun. I said,
- 13:04Speaker 2: Knock yourself out. So those are different strategies you can
- 13:08Speaker 2: do with reverse mortgages. But the fact of the matter
- 13:09Speaker 2: is nobody's going to take your home. You can use
- 13:12Speaker 2: the money to invest in other places. But you can't
- 13:18Speaker 2: use the money from reverse to buy another home and
- 13:21Speaker 2: go live in it. Now, what you can do if
- 13:23Speaker 2: you were to sell a property is you can use
- 13:26Speaker 2: a reverse mortgage to buy another property and not have
- 13:29Speaker 2: a mortgage payment. And we're starting to see more and
- 13:32Speaker 2: more people kind of lean toward that because they're realizing, look,
- 13:36Speaker 2: I'm 70 years old and I don't have enough cash
- 13:39Speaker 2: really to buy the property that I want to buy.
- 13:41Speaker 2: I could buy a lesser property, not tax-free, but mortgage-free,
- 13:46Speaker 2: or I could step it up maybe another $ 200, 000 or $ 300, 000
- 13:49Speaker 2: with one of these reverse mortgages and still not have
- 13:51Speaker 2: a mortgage payment. Because what I'm realizing, experiencing it at
- 13:56Speaker 2: my ripe old age of 67. I'll be 67 October 23rd.
- 14:00Speaker 2: So put that in your calendar, put that in your pipe.
- 14:04Speaker 2: And so we're, you know, starting to see things get,
- 14:07Speaker 2: you know, everything is more expensive than it was 10
- 14:09Speaker 2: years ago. Of course, that's the way it works. So anyway,
- 14:13Speaker 2: that's a couple of options there. Another one is, can I,
- 14:17Speaker 2: what if I outlive the money from a reverse mortgage?
- 14:20Speaker 2: And this is, this can be a problem. And I
- 14:23Speaker 2: want to share a story with you guys on a client.
- 14:26Speaker 2: I just closed this week. As a matter of fact,
- 14:29Speaker 2: she was referred to us by some investors. We know,
- 14:31Speaker 2: you know, we know some people who like to buy
- 14:34Speaker 2: properties and fix them up and flip them and make
- 14:36Speaker 2: a profit. And we have a network of those friends and,
- 14:41Speaker 2: and they usually find people who are distressed either in
- 14:45Speaker 2: foreclosure proceedings or behind on their mortgage or whatever. And
- 14:50Speaker 2: they try to negotiate a deal with them and take
- 14:53Speaker 2: over the properties. Well, This one referral came from an
- 14:57Speaker 2: investor friend, and she felt sorry for this person. And
- 15:01Speaker 2: she said, look, I'm not trying to buy your home.
- 15:04Speaker 2: I want you to refer you to Mark and his wife, Shara,
- 15:08Speaker 2: because the lady needed money. She had lost her job.
- 15:11Speaker 2: She was still working at 70. She was almost 80
- 15:13Speaker 2: years old. She was still working.
- 15:15Speaker 3: And so she was.
- 15:15Speaker 2: Behind on her mortgage. As a matter of fact, friends
- 15:17Speaker 2: from church were helping her out to the tune of
- 15:19Speaker 2: around $ 20, 000 by the time we got to her. So
- 15:23Speaker 2: she still had a mortgage on her property. And so,
- 15:26Speaker 2: but she didn't have much income. And so what happened,
- 15:30Speaker 2: we were to close on that deal. And because her
- 15:33Speaker 2: credit wasn't very good because she was behind on her mortgage. Well,
- 15:36Speaker 2: she wasn't behind at the time because the friends had
- 15:39Speaker 2: stepped up to help her. But her credit wasn't very good.
- 15:43Speaker 2: And she loved her cats. She had like six cats.
- 15:46Speaker 2: I guess that's where all her money was, was the cats.
- 15:49Speaker 2: But so we were able to roll in what's called
- 15:53Speaker 2: a LESA, L-E-S-A, which is a life expectancy set-aside, where
- 15:59Speaker 2: the lender will calculate approximately what your tax insurance is
- 16:04Speaker 2: going to be for the next 15 years or 20
- 16:06Speaker 2: years or whatever it is, however much we can get you.
- 16:10Speaker 2: And then they will pay those every year for you.
- 16:12Speaker 2: So she doesn't have a mortgage payment, obviously, and she
- 16:15Speaker 2: won't be paying her taxes or insurance as long as
- 16:17Speaker 2: she lives in that property. So she liked that idea.
- 16:20Speaker 2: And we were able to free up a little more
- 16:22Speaker 2: cash for her because of her equity. But the appraisal
- 16:25Speaker 2: came in a little lower than we had hoped.
- 16:27Speaker 3: So we weren't able to give her as much as
- 16:29Speaker 3: she wanted.
- 16:29Speaker 2: But at least it freed her up to give her
- 16:32Speaker 2: some peace of mind that she can stay in her property.
- 16:35Speaker 2: And she actually is going to be looking for probably
- 16:37Speaker 2: a part-time job. Now, the problem is, and I told her,
- 16:42Speaker 2: I said, look, if you outlived your 95 years old,
- 16:46Speaker 2: if you lived longer than 95 years, She doesn't think
- 16:50Speaker 2: she will, but that's only 16 more years. Then the lease,
- 16:56Speaker 2: it's out of money because that's all we could get
- 16:59Speaker 2: her as far as the loan went. So she would
- 17:02Speaker 2: then be responsible for taxes and insurance at that point
- 17:05Speaker 2: if she lived to 95. Now, who knows what's going
- 17:07Speaker 2: to happen in the next 16 years, but I did
- 17:09Speaker 2: warn her about that. She was very clear. She's a
- 17:11Speaker 2: very sharp woman. So the fact of the matter is
- 17:16Speaker 2: we couldn't do it forever, but we could do it
- 17:18Speaker 2: for a long time. And she was happy enough with that.
- 17:20Speaker 2: She said, well, I probably won't be around 16 years.
- 17:22Speaker 3: Anyway, that's the risk.
- 17:26Speaker 2: And that is one of the problems that people say, well,
- 17:30Speaker 2: these reverse mortgages are going to, you know, they have
- 17:32Speaker 2: a high rate of foreclosure. The fact of the matter
- 17:34Speaker 2: is they don't foreclose on you. The lender's not going
- 17:37Speaker 2: to foreclose you. What's going to be the problem is
- 17:40Speaker 2: the county could foreclose on you if you're not paying
- 17:42Speaker 2: the taxes or the insurance could force you to pay
- 17:45Speaker 2: insurance or force you out. So those are the reasons
- 17:48Speaker 2: people get foreclosed on a reverse mortgage, not because they
- 17:50Speaker 2: have a reverse mortgage. The bank's not going to do
- 17:52Speaker 2: it because you don't owe them anything until you leave
- 17:55Speaker 2: the property. So anyway, I like to clear that one up.
- 18:00Speaker 3: Let's see.
- 18:01Speaker 2: Another one is, what happens if I have to move
- 18:04Speaker 2: into a nursing home? Now, that's planning ahead. Now, I
- 18:11Speaker 2: have some clients that didn't plan ahead. It was a
- 18:13Speaker 2: client of mine, a younger man, called me, said, man, my...
- 18:17Speaker 2: My in-laws are in trouble. They're struggling because he has
- 18:24Speaker 2: to go into memory care. The husband, he's still living.
- 18:27Speaker 2: So he still has some income from Social Security and
- 18:29Speaker 2: a little bit of pension money. But otherwise, they can't
- 18:34Speaker 2: afford the nursing home. That's the problem. They don't have
- 18:37Speaker 2: long-term care insurance. And I'm footing the bill right now,
- 18:40Speaker 2: and I don't want to do that for very much longer.
- 18:41Speaker 3: It's like $ 6, 000 a month.
- 18:43Speaker 2: So you can, as long as a spouse, in his case,
- 18:47Speaker 2: if he was a single man or a widow or
- 18:49Speaker 2: a widower and they had to move to a nursing home, again,
- 18:53Speaker 2: you're going to have to sell the property because, you know,
- 18:56Speaker 2: or deed it to your kids and they can maybe
- 18:58Speaker 2: refinance it. But the loan has to be paid off.
- 19:01Speaker 2: In his case, they don't have to pay it off
- 19:03Speaker 2: because the mother, the wife, I should say, is still
- 19:05Speaker 2: living in that home and she's in pretty good health.
- 19:08Speaker 2: So we're freeing up some cash to cash flow out
- 19:11Speaker 2: some of the equity in order to pay for the
- 19:13Speaker 2: husband's care, they don't think he'll probably make it another
- 19:15Speaker 2: couple years.
- 19:15Speaker 3: And there's plenty enough.
- 19:16Speaker 2: Money in that loan to keep him in his care home.
- 19:23Speaker 2: So that's another way that people use this type of loan.
- 19:31Speaker 2: And what if my home needs repairs? That's another question
- 19:34Speaker 2: that comes up. And that's a good question because we
- 19:36Speaker 2: can't do this loan unless your house is in fairly
- 19:39Speaker 2: good condition. As a matter of fact, the lady with
- 19:41Speaker 2: the cats, we had to, I didn't say we, not me.
- 19:46Speaker 2: She went to the city of Zinroun Rock. has some–
- 19:51Speaker 2: and I don't know exactly how this works because it
- 19:52Speaker 2: wasn't really a loan.
- 19:53Speaker 3: It was more of a grant.
- 19:55Speaker 2: But they gave– she needed some work on her home.
- 19:57Speaker 2: The roof was in bad shape. Some of the plumbing
- 19:59Speaker 2: was in bad shape. So at that point, we couldn't
- 20:01Speaker 2: get her a mortgage because it wasn't habitable, if you will.
- 20:05Speaker 2: So there's guidelines on condition of property too. They're not
- 20:07Speaker 2: going to loan on a property that needs a lot
- 20:09Speaker 2: of work. And so the city of Austin, city of
- 20:13Speaker 2: Round Rock or Williamson County or somebody had a $ 20, 000
- 20:16Speaker 2: grant that she was qualified for because of her income status.
- 20:19Speaker 2: And she was able to fix the property up. We
- 20:21Speaker 2: got it appraised and we closed the loan. So otherwise
- 20:25Speaker 2: you can do that yourself. I had one borrower who
- 20:27Speaker 2: lived in a nice home, but an older home and
- 20:30Speaker 2: built in the probably late seventies. And he was able
- 20:34Speaker 2: to access about a hundred. He said, I want to
- 20:35Speaker 2: stay in my home, but I don't want to go
- 20:36Speaker 2: out and get a home improvement loan or a mortgage
- 20:39Speaker 2: or whatever. I said, well, we can do a reverse mortgage.
- 20:42Speaker 2: You can access $ 100, 000, actually more, but that's all he needed.
- 20:46Speaker 2: He said that's going to make it nice. He fixed
- 20:48Speaker 2: it all up, and he's not having to make a
- 20:50Speaker 2: mortgage payment on that loan because it's a reverse mortgage.
- 20:54Speaker 2: So he's very happy about that. As a matter of fact,
- 20:57Speaker 2: I had a friend of mine call me, and this
- 20:59Speaker 2: has changed the subject a little bit, but how people
- 21:02Speaker 2: can buy homes with a reverse mortgage. We talked about
- 21:04Speaker 2: this a second ago, but a friend of mine, an
- 21:07Speaker 2: old friend of mine, I hadn't talked to him in
- 21:08Speaker 2: probably five or six years.
- 21:09Speaker 3: She called me. Her name is Sandy.
- 21:11Speaker 2: She said, Mark, I was listening to your radio show,
- 21:13Speaker 2: and the fact of the matter is I bought a
- 21:15Speaker 2: home using reverse mortgage back in 2018 or 2019, somewhere
- 21:20Speaker 2: in there. She said, I retired from the state. I
- 21:22Speaker 2: knew it through real estate. She did sell a little
- 21:24Speaker 2: real estate back in the day. And she said, you know,
- 21:27Speaker 2: I've got money in the markets, but I wanted to
- 21:29Speaker 2: buy a home, and I didn't want to pay cash
- 21:31Speaker 2: for it. And so I used reverse. It's the best
- 21:33Speaker 2: decision I ever made. I should have her on the show,
- 21:35Speaker 2: as a matter of fact.
- 21:37Speaker 3: I may call her.
- 21:38Speaker 2: And I've had a lot of, I say a lot,
- 21:40Speaker 2: two or three other friends over the years who happen
- 21:42Speaker 2: to be realtors. Realtors, they understand this product, really appreciate it.
- 21:46Speaker 2: And both of them had bought homes, one in Bastrop
- 21:48Speaker 2: and one in Kyle, using reverse mortgage because they understand
- 21:51Speaker 2: the mechanics of it and how it works. It's not
- 21:53Speaker 2: a scary thing once you learn about it. So, and
- 21:57Speaker 2: with that said, I've got a few minutes here. With
- 21:58Speaker 2: that said, I'm really excited. I'm wrapping up the final
- 22:02Speaker 2: edits of my book coming out. And I hope to
- 22:05Speaker 2: have that on the shelves, on at least Amazon shelves,
- 22:08Speaker 2: I should say, in the next, I don't know, three
- 22:11Speaker 2: or four weeks, something like that. And the book is,
- 22:14Speaker 2: I finally said on the name, thanks to the help
- 22:16Speaker 2: of some of the people here on the audience, it's
- 22:19Speaker 2: called The Gold Mine in Your Backyard. Because people don't
- 22:22Speaker 2: realize that a lot of their net worth, and they
- 22:26Speaker 2: may realize it, but they don't realize what they can
- 22:28Speaker 2: do with it. So, it's really 69 or 70 sort
- 22:32Speaker 2: of questions, scenarios, some of the things we talk about
- 22:34Speaker 2: on the show, um, examples of people who use this
- 22:37Speaker 2: and other questions that we cover in the book. That's
- 22:39Speaker 2: where I get a lot of this material. These are
- 22:41Speaker 2: things that people ask me over the time, or I've
- 22:43Speaker 2: done my own research. I had my own questions around it,
- 22:45Speaker 2: you know, cause I've heard about this product for years
- 22:48Speaker 2: being the mortgage space, but I didn't know much about
- 22:50Speaker 2: it until a few years ago. And I started really
- 22:52Speaker 2: doing a lot of deep research on it. And I
- 22:53Speaker 2: think it's a great option for a lot of people,
- 22:55Speaker 2: not for everybody, but for a lot of people. Um,
- 23:00Speaker 2: Can a lender change the terms? And there's two things
- 23:03Speaker 2: I want to talk about is fees real quick. We've
- 23:05Speaker 2: got a couple minutes. Now, here's another question. Can these
- 23:10Speaker 2: fees be negotiated? Because I tell people all the time
- 23:13Speaker 2: when they're going out to get a mortgage, even if
- 23:16Speaker 2: you don't choose me, I will help you negotiate different costs.
- 23:19Speaker 2: I know where the hidden costs are on mortgages. I mean,
- 23:23Speaker 2: what they call junk fees. Now, some fees are not
- 23:26Speaker 2: junk fees. Some fees have to be paid. The attorney
- 23:29Speaker 2: is going to be paid for sure. The recording people
- 23:31Speaker 2: at the county survey, if possible, appraisal. Those are fees
- 23:35Speaker 2: you normally can't negotiate with the lender. Now, you can
- 23:38Speaker 2: negotiate with the seller to pay them, but not the lender.
- 23:41Speaker 2: But there are fees you can negotiate with the lender.
- 23:44Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, The lady, one of the
- 23:47Speaker 2: clients I've been talking about, we negotiated our fee down,
- 23:50Speaker 2: our origination cost or fee, because we wanted to help
- 23:54Speaker 2: her get a little more money. We do this for
- 23:57Speaker 2: a living, obviously, but we also do it because I
- 24:00Speaker 2: think it's important to help people. So my wife and I,
- 24:03Speaker 2: I should say, we waived about, I think it was
- 24:05Speaker 2: around $ 4, 000 or $ 3, 500 from a closing fee. And those
- 24:10Speaker 2: are fees that you can negotiate with a reverse mortgage
- 24:13Speaker 2: lender or any lender, some of the origination cost of
- 24:17Speaker 2: these loans. Now, if you get a HECM, they're going
- 24:20Speaker 2: to be more expensive. They're, I think, a better product,
- 24:22Speaker 2: but they do cost a lot because of the insurance
- 24:25Speaker 2: premium that some of the proprietary loans won't have, which
- 24:27Speaker 2: is 2% of the value of the property. So in
- 24:30Speaker 2: her case, the 2% came to around $ 7, 000. She couldn't
- 24:34Speaker 2: waive that if she wanted to get the loan. Now,
- 24:36Speaker 2: some of the proprietary products that we've talked about don't
- 24:39Speaker 2: have origination fees or they don't have any insurance premiums
- 24:42Speaker 2: because they're not a government-backed loan.
- 24:45Speaker 3: They're not insured.
- 24:46Speaker 2: So that's something to consider as well, the cost of
- 24:50Speaker 2: these loans. But again, if you're talking to your bank
- 24:54Speaker 2: who may do a reverse mortgage, probably not. Most banks
- 24:57Speaker 2: aren't in that business.
- 25:00Speaker 3: But they could be.
- 25:00Speaker 2: I'm not saying they're not or anybody that you're talking to.
- 25:03Speaker 2: and you want a second opinion, let me know, because
- 25:06Speaker 2: they're not all the same. They're going to be close
- 25:08Speaker 2: to the same because there's only a few markets out
- 25:11Speaker 2: there that actually do these well. When I say markets,
- 25:15Speaker 2: there's a few lenders around the country who do them
- 25:17Speaker 2: very well.
- 25:18Speaker 3: But you have to go through a broker.
- 25:20Speaker 2: Like myself or another lender in order to access the
- 25:23Speaker 2: reverse mortgage. You can't go to the federal government. They're
- 25:25Speaker 2: not going to lend the money to you. What happens
- 25:29Speaker 2: during a market housing crash? That's another one that kind
- 25:32Speaker 2: of comes around. The fact of the matter is we're
- 25:34Speaker 2: not really crashing.
- 25:35Speaker 3: We have had a severe correction.
- 25:37Speaker 2: But I'm telling people I'm looking at one to two,
- 25:40Speaker 2: maybe 3% when I start looking at assumptions of value
- 25:43Speaker 2: down the road. A common one in Austin, Texas is 4%,
- 25:47Speaker 2: 4% appreciation.
- 25:49Speaker 3: And we may see those days again, but I think
- 25:50Speaker 3: it's going to be a few years.
- 25:51Speaker 2: So when I'm analyzing these properties for these loans, I'm
- 25:55Speaker 2: saying I want to use a 2% appreciation. I don't
- 25:57Speaker 2: want to be too aggressive in that and say something
- 26:00Speaker 2: that's probably not going.
- 26:01Speaker 3: To be true down the road. Now, I could be wrong.
- 26:04Speaker 2: We've seen inflation and we've seen appreciation in 10%, 15%
- 26:09Speaker 2: some years. But I want to be very conservative. I'm
- 26:12Speaker 2: thinking 2% to 3%, max 3%. But again, in a
- 26:14Speaker 2: market crash, you'll never You'll never be responsible if your
- 26:23Speaker 2: loan amount is higher than the value of your property.
- 26:25Speaker 2: They'll never come back. It's a non-recourse loan. So if
- 26:27Speaker 2: you owe a million dollars and your property is worth
- 26:29Speaker 2: half a million dollars, the $ 500, 000 is waived.
- 26:32Speaker 3: Nobody will be responsible for that. So I hope that helps.
- 26:35Speaker 2: If you've got any questions, call me, please, at 512-789-6967
- 26:38Speaker 2: or mark at markhairston.com, H-A-I-R-S-T-O-N, mark at markhairston.com. Until next time,
- 26:48Speaker 2: have a great weekend and hook them horns.
- 26:51Speaker 1: This has been Mortgage Talk with Mark Hairston. Mark is
- 26:54Speaker 1: a mortgage advocate with Texas Mortgage Source LLC, offering personalized
- 26:59Speaker 1: mortgage solutions, fast customized quotes, great rates and service with integrity.
- 27:05Speaker 1: Contact Mark at MarkHairston.com. MarkHairston.com. You can call or text
- 27:11Speaker 1: Mark at 512-789-6967.
- 27:11Speaker 3: That's 512-789-6967. And come back next week for more Mortgage Talk.