The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association recently announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) approved a single national loan limit of $417,000 for federally insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) reverse mortgages. The new, higher lending limit will enable borrowers to obtain a substantially greater benefit from their homes, if their home value is higher the previous HUD limit. Previously, the HECM program assigned different lending limits by county ranging from $200,160 in rural areas to $362,790 in the highest home value areas.
This change will allow seniors that have higher valued homes to obtain substantially more equity from a reverse mortgage in areas that were originally not deemed high costs areas. With this new change and other changes to the fees that reverse mortgage lenders can charge, reverse mortgages may get a second look when it comes to finding more liquid assets in today’s marketplace. More money and lower fees…..sounds like a recipe for increased popularity.
For more information on NRMLA’s press release, click here.