Bridging the Gap: How Financial Advisors Can Talk to Their Clients about Home Equity

Elderly homeowners own more than $11 trillion in home equity, and many are struggling with a financial plan that fully funds their lifetime expenses, yet financial advisors often overlook this hidden wealth. Why? This presentation will take a deep dive into the FHA Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) and new attractive and low-cost proprietary products to understand how they can improve the retirement plans of clients, protect against longevity risk, be optimized to fit with client goals, and do so in an ethical and compliant manner. Home equity is one of the largest sources of assets for clients, and reverses mortgages can unlock this hidden wealth in a safe and standardized manner. With new, best-interest and compliance standards for financial advisors, the value of considering home equity in the planning process is growing.

Learning Objectives:

1. Review changes to the HECM program over the past several years that have strengthened consumer protections
2. Understand the core foundation of reverse mortgages including qualification, ongoing requirements, consumer protections, costs, disbursement of funds, credit line growth, and settlement
3. Demonstrate the impact of funds from home equity in improving outcomes for retirement planning and estate planning
4. Apply HECM/private reverse mortgage strategies for three case studies
5. Understand how to adhere to compliance considerations for when and how to present a reverse mortgage

This session is sponsored by Longbridge Financial.