Reverse Mortgages on the Rise

The popularity of reverse mortgages in the U.S. seems to be exploding as more and more people begin to use their home equity to help fund retirement. Just take a look at these reverse mortgage statistics from HUD.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development endorsed a total of 7,572 reverse mortgages in June. And it has endorsed 55,659 reverse mortgages thru the nine months of FY 2006 ending June 30.

To put that in prospective the FHA endorsed only 43,131 reverse mortgage loans for all of FY 2005. In fact year-to-date totals represent a 83 percent increase over the 30,404 loans endorsed during the same period last year. That is impressive growth for any industry.