Reverse Your Mortgage

Changes in HUD Counseling

Revised 6-1-07 Latest Update from Direct Connect
Direct Connect is a service commonly used by reverse mortgage advisors to order third party counseling reverse mortgage counseling for their borrowers. One of the questions I posed to the head of the HUD counseling department in Santa Ana, CA is how are HUD counselors going to keep up with this rapidly changing industry. To their credit, each counseling session is performed with product specific information and the numbers that are discussed are specific to the loan estimates of the borrower. See below for further information.

National Aging in Place Code of Conduct

LA Times list of "GrandCare" Monitoring systems

Today’s Los Angeles times Home section has an excellent article in supporting the alternative option to assisted living by using new technology called “GrandCare” systems. These systems use computers, sensor, and webcams to help seniors live safely at home, maintain their independence, and give both the seniors and their adult children peace of mind.
The article continues to comment on the “aging in place” movement driven by baby boomers and the enormous burden on the U.S. healthcare system.
“Corporations and government policy makers realize that as the boomers age, the costs won’t be sustainable if we continue to do business the way we’re doing it right now,” says Majd Alwan, director of the Center for Aging Services Technologies in Washington, D.C.
“There is an intrinsic value to the home, where the individual has a sense of accomplishment and a level of comfort that they will never replicate by moving,” says Peter Bell executive director of the National Aging in Place Council in Washington, D.C. Click here to read the entire article.

Reverse Mortgage Counseling Grants

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES $44.1 MILLION IN HOUSING COUNSELING GRANTS TO NEARLY 400 NATIONAL, STATE AND LOCAL AGENCIES

WASHINGTON

- Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development distributed $44 million in new funding to pay for counseling services, including $3 million specifically for HECM. 

Housing counseling training grants will help approximately 2,600 counselors receive the instruction and certification necessary to effectively assist families with their housing needs. These grants, totaling $3 million, were awarded to two national organizations.

Of the more than $41 million in housing counseling grants, $3 million is being awarded in supplemental funding for Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) counseling. These funds will provide counseling for the rapidly growing number of elderly homeowners who seek to convert equity in their homes into income that can be used to pay for home improvements, medical costs, and other living expenses.

The National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) was awarded $1.8 million and Money Management International (MMI) $1.3 million to pay for HECM counseling over the next year. The remaining $41 million—awarded to 19 national and regional organizations and nearly 370 state and local housing counseling agencies—can also be used for HECM counseling, in addition to first-time homebuyer counseling, credit counseling, and bankruptcy counseling.

HUD awards annual grants under the housing counseling program through a competitive process. Organizations that apply for grants must be HUD-approved and are subject to biennial performance reviews to maintain their HUD-approved status.