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Resource Center

Understand the whole thing before you talk to anyone.

Everything we know about reverse mortgages, written out. Read it here, take it to your family, and compare it against whatever anyone else tells you — including us.

Start Here

Three ways into this, depending on where you are.

Nobody arrives at the same place. Choose the description closest to your situation and start there — you can always go further once the first two make sense.

I am just starting to learn

You have heard the term, you are not sure what it means, and you are not ready to talk to anyone. Start with these two.

I am seriously considering it

You understand roughly what it is and you want to know whether it fits your situation and what it would actually cost.

I am helping a parent

Someone you care about is looking at this and you want to understand it independently before you weigh in.

The Library

Everything, and you can search it.

Twelve pieces covering the whole of the product. Each one is the single place we answer that question — if two pages here disagreed with each other, you would have no way of knowing which was right.

12 articles.

The basics

A Clearer Way to Understand the Equity You've Built

The whole mechanism in one page: what equity is, what a reverse mortgage does with it, and what still belongs to you afterwards.

Read this

The basics

What Equity Actually Means

Home value minus what you still owe. Why that number is not the same as what you could access, and which factors close the gap.

Read this

Ownership

Does the Bank Own My Home?

No. The single most common misunderstanding, answered at length, with what remains yours and what remains your responsibility.

Read this

The basics

What Determines How Much You Could Access

Six factors, in the order they usually matter: age, home value, existing mortgage, rates, property eligibility, and loan structure.

Read this

Costs

How Interest Works Over Time

The balance grows as interest accrues. How the accrual actually works, and why nobody can tell you what the balance will be in fifteen years.

Read this

Costs

What It Costs, Line By Line

A table of every cost, who is paid, and when — including the ones that are easy to leave until the end of a conversation.

Read this

Repayment

When the Loan Has to Be Repaid

Four scenarios, plainly: you sell, the last borrower permanently leaves, the last borrower dies, or the obligations are not met.

Read this

Family

What Happens to Your Children

How the estate works with a reverse mortgage, what heirs can choose to do, and why a reverse mortgage is never inherited as a personal debt.

Read this

Deciding

Is It Right For You? An Honest Assessment

An eight-question self-assessment, five homeowner profiles, and a list of the situations where we would advise against proceeding.

Read this

Deciding

The Alternatives, Side By Side

Reverse mortgage, cash-out refinance, HELOC, selling and downsizing, and doing nothing — compared without steering you toward one.

Read this

Deciding

What Homeowners Were Worried About

The six questions almost every homeowner asks in the first ten minutes, answered in the words they actually used.

Read this

Questions

Reverse Mortgage Questions, Answered Properly

Ten categories of question with a short answer, what it means, and what to ask your own advisor — including eligibility and spousal protections.

Read this

The Complete Guide

Everything on this page, in one document you can take away.

The articles above are the same material, arranged for reading on a screen. The guide is the version you can print, mark up, and take to a family conversation or an attorney — because a decision this size is rarely made alone.

How the product works, start to finish, without jargon
Every cost, and the questions to ask about each one
What remains yours, and what the loan does and does not touch
The situations in which we would advise you not to proceed

Start With How Reverse Mortgages Work

The guides themselves are the pages above, written to be read on screen and printed from your browser whenever you want a paper copy.

Plain English

The words, explained before they are used.

Sixteen terms that appear in almost every reverse mortgage conversation. Each one is written the way we would say it out loud — the formal definition, where it differs, comes second.

The value you have built up in your home.: Your home's value minus anything you still owe on it. The rest is yours.
The amount you can actually borrow.: Set by a formula using your age, your home's value, current rates, and the lender's limits. It is almost always less than your equity.
A rule that caps what you owe at what the house is worth.: If the balance ever exceeds the home's value, the difference is the lender's loss. Neither you nor your estate owes it.
Interest being added to the loan instead of being paid monthly.: This is why the balance grows over time while no payment is made. It is the central trade-off of the product.
A required talk with an independent counsellor before you can sign.: Required by law for most reverse mortgages, and provided by someone who does not work for the lender.
The three-day window after signing in which you can change your mind.: You can cancel for any reason, with no penalty, during this period.
Money set aside from the loan to cover a specific cost later.: Sometimes used for property taxes and insurance, so a homeowner is not caught short by them.
The amount you draw at closing that is not a lump sum.: Can be monthly, on a schedule you set, or drawn from a line of credit as you need it.
The person who manages the loan once it has funded.: Rarely the company that sold you the loan. You are entitled to a clear statement and a direct contact.
A rule requiring you to provide the loan amount as a percentage.: A loan secured against your home that pays you, rather than you paying it, and comes due when the last borrower permanently leaves.
The share of the home's value a lender will consider lending against.: Commonly shortened to LTV. A lower LTV generally means lower risk to the lender.
The interest rate plus fees, expressed as one annual percentage.: Useful for comparing two offers with different fee structures — but not a full picture on its own.
Whoever is on title and responsible for the home.: In reverse mortgages the phrase you will mostly hear is homeowner. There can be two, and the loan lasts until the last of them leaves.
Money the loan sets aside to pay your property taxes and insurance for you.: Often optional, and often the reason a loan balance grows slightly faster than expected.
The moment the entire balance becomes payable.: On a reverse mortgage this is triggered by a specific event — a sale, a permanent move, or a death — not a date on the calendar.
Everything you own, including your home, and what happens to it.: The loan is settled from the estate. Heirs choose whether to keep the home by repaying the balance, or to sell it and keep whatever equity remains.

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Where Reading Ends

Every answer here is general, because every house is specific.

The glossary, the articles, and the guide are all written to make you a better question-asker — not to replace the conversation that comes after them.

Written by the advisors who answer these questions all day

Ask SMA

Ask a question. You do not have to book anything.

If something on this page raised a question the library did not answer, send it. You will get a written reply from an advisor — no call scheduled, no follow-up sequence, nothing added to a pipeline unless you ask for it.

What happens to a question.

01 It reaches an advisor, not a queue or an autoresponder.
02 You get a written answer, usually within one business day.
03 Nothing is scheduled unless you reply asking to talk.

Answers are general information about how the product works, not advice about your personal situation. If your question needs the second thing, an advisor will say so in the reply.

Senior Mortgage Advisors

Read as much as you need. Then ask.

The library is here so that you can make up your own mind. When you want a person, there is one — and the first conversation commits you to nothing.

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