Reply #25: "Why not a reverse mortgage?"

[ljm2002]

Right. So now we EXPECT people to drain every last drop of equity they have built up over the years just so they can live comfortably -- even if they have planned and done everything right. Because, dontcha know, it will do a lot "more good" that way.

How the hell do you know it won't do any good after she's dead? Maybe she dreamed of having something to leave her surviving family. Maybe she thought she could give the equity she had built up to her favorite charity. But no, the right answer according to you is to take out a reverse mortgage so some bank or real estate company can suck the marrow out of her bones.

Man I hate the way things are these days. She owns her house free and clear, so now the banks have figured out a new way to repossess it. Just talk oldsters into reverse mortgages, with a little help from strapped state and local governments who continue to raise property taxes (on the few properties that are left with owners who are actually paying said taxes). And in the meantime, the big banks and the big real estate companies and all the big guys pay less and less in taxes, and get richer.

Quite a system we've got here.