One of the biggest things that is happening in the reverse mortgage market today is that legislators and others in positions of authority are working hard to make this industry safe for seniors. We've seen this in many different forms, including a recent crackdown by the FBI on reverse mortgage fraud. And we're going to see it continue until the problem of bad lenders in the reverse mortgage market has been diminished.
One of the people who is pushing hard for this kind of attention to remain strong is U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill. Specifically, she has been urging Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon to play an active role in reducing the amount of predatory lending that is happening in his state. The main thing that they're working on is reducing the number of reverse mortgage lenders that are using false or misleading marketing tactics to rope seniors into bad loans.
One area that we haevn't seen a lot of attention to before which these two are working on covering is the marketing of the reverse mortgage as a "benefit". Some lenders are saying that it's a government program designed to help seniors in the same way that social security and Medicare are designed to do. This leads to much confusion in the senior population and that leads to bad loans.
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Question of the Day: Are these marketing tactics the area of reverse mortgaeg fraud that we should be most concerned about?
