Het Neoliberale Geloof 74

'WASHINGTON — With the housing market in decline, unscrupulous sales agents are popping up in the booming reverse mortgage industry, where reports of deceptive and high-pressure sales tactics are worrying lawmakers and consumer advocates alike.
Both say thousands of older Americans could be steered into inappropriate loans, just as millions were lured into now-shaky sub-prime loans. Their solution? Better loan counseling and stronger government supervision and regulation.
"We have gone through a savings and loan collapse, a stock market bubble and are currently in the middle of a lending mess. Our goal is to make sure that the reverse mortgages don't become the scandal of the next decade," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said at a hearing this week before the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
Reverse mortgages typically allow homeowners who are 62 and older to borrow against their home equity without having to repay the money until the home is sold or the borrower dies or permanently moves out. The older the borrower and the greater the value of the home, the more money that can be borrowed.
Ninety percent of reverse mortgages are issued through the federally insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program. The number of HECM loans issued annually has grown from 157 in 1990 to more than 76,000 last year. Lenders expect to issue more than 214,000 loans this year.
Most agree that reverse mortgages, used properly, can provide cash to help seniors live more comfortably. In fact, the Senate on Friday passed bipartisan legislation that removes the cap on the number of reverse mortgage loans that the Federal Housing Administration can insure.
But as the popularity of reverse mortgages grows, the industry is proving fertile ground for predatory lenders, loan agents and brokers who see older, cash-strapped borrowers as easy pickings.
Peter Bell, president of the National Reverse Mortgage Loan Association, said he doesn't believe the problem is widespread. But he conceded that sales agents left jobless by the housing crisis are migrating to the reverse mortgage industry and may "have a different type of mentality about moving transactions through quickly."
More than 12.5 million seniors ages 65 and over own their homes with no mortgage debt, representing more than $4 trillion in home equity. Those numbers will only increase as the first of nearly 80 million baby boomers born before1964 begin retiring in the next few years.'

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