Senator McCaskill Challenged on Reverse Mortgage Position

Newsday journalist Saul Friedman recently offered a much needed challenge to Sen. Claire McCaskill's two year crusade to clean up what she called at a June hearing in her home state, a "program that is leaving our seniors vulnerable to predatory practices leading to fraud and victimization."  Clearly she is misinformed. 

It seems that Sen. McCaskill wants to create disadvantages of reverse mortgages where there are none, or at most few.

In his popular Gray Matters column Friedman writes....

"To hear Sen. Claire McCaskill talk about federally insured reverse mortgages, you'd think the popular program is riddled with fraud and victimizing older Americans and costing the government billions."

Readers are encouraged by Friedman...

"Not to worry. Your reverse mortgage is safe, and so is the 20-year-old program that has insured such loans for more than 500,000 older homeowners, including 112,000 last year."

Friedman will concede that the industry is not perfect and has some problems.  Can you think of one that doesn't?  He says that despite the problems...

"auditors have found scant evidence of fraud in the market for the HECM."

Friedman asked McCaskill's office to provide him with evidence but was only given the witnesses at her hearing where several suggested that the lucrative reverse mortgage market was becoming a target for deceptive advertising but no cases of fraud were cited in the HECM program.

I for one am thankful that someone from outside the reverse mortgage industry is presenting a challenge to Senator McCaskill ridiculous position.

Thanks Saul...Way to go!

If you're wondering how do reverse mortgages work or to get a reverse mortgage quote check out Rodney's popular blog.