New Financial Planning Study Shows Reverse Mortgage Saver as Retirement Savior

While historically, financial planners have taken a mixed public view on reverse mortgages, recent research conducted by figureheads in the financial planning community, in conjunction with Texas Tech University, indicate the population may be in for a sea change.

Further, they are pointing to a fairly new way to use reverse mortgages: as a standby cash flow means that can be used in place of drawing down on underperforming investments for people who are 62 and older.

The new research, published in the August issue of the Journal of Financial Planning, delves into the use of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) Saver as a retirement planning tool. The “Saver” is a relatively new reverse mortgage product that is offered under Federal Housing Administration insurance.

The Saver, which offers lower upfront fees but also a smaller amount of reverse mortgage proceeds than traditional reverse mortgages, when used as a line of credit as an alternative to drawing down on under-performing investments, can improve the retirement situations of many Americans, the research finds.

“Our results suggest that many retirees, and even workers who qualify for the product who are drawing on savings to supplement their earned income, could benefit from the use of an HECM Saver reverse mortgage,” the research summary states.

The research, conducted by Texas Tech researchers John Salter, Shaun Pfeiffer and Harold Evensky, who is president of Evensky & Katz Wealth Management, follows another recent reverse mortgage study also geared toward the financial planning community.

The Saver

The HECM Saver has very low upfront costs at just .02% of the max claim amount of the loan. It can be taken as a fixed rate or an adjustable rate, as a lump sum, in ongoing payments or as a line of credit.

The research uses the line of credit, which can be paid back at any time without penalty, in its retirement planning simulations.

Introduced in 2010, the Saver is a newer type of reverse mortgage than the standard product, which has been around since the early 1990s. While it only makes up a small proportion of total reverse mortgages, it has grown in its use since it was introduced.

Here’s how the researchers used the Saver to improve retirement preparedness:

The saver is used with a two-bucket investment strategy, which it calls the standby reverse mortgage strategy, or SRM.

This stands as an additional source of readily available cash to draw upon when a borrower’s portfolio value strays substantially from what is expected, the research explains.

Many Americans have seen investment portfolios lose substantial value as a result of the economic downturn, presenting such an opportunity.

Using simulations based on different withdrawal rates of 4%, 5% and 6% with a home value of $250,000 and a retirement portfolio valued at $500,000, the strategy was successful in all scenarios.

“We find this risk management strategy improves portfolio survival rates by a significant amount,” the researchers write. “The improvement in survival rates is attributable to the mitigation of the volatility drain—the risk of having to sell investments when depreciated.”