Reverse Mortgages: Scam or Savior

Is a reverse mortgage a scam or a possible financial savior, ?

In this enlightening episode of "Reverse Mortage: Scam or Savior" we dive into the world of reverse mortgages and their potential benefits for seniors who are considering downsizing. Our guest expert, Frank Borg of Fairway Mortgages,  is a renowned authority on reverse mortgages with years of experience guiding seniors through this financial option.

Hosted byJudy Gratton and Dennis Day or the Edge Group Team, this episode is designed to provide valuable insights and practical advice to seniors who are exploring downsizing as a means to enhance their retirement lifestyle. With rising living costs and evolving financial landscapes, seniors are seeking innovative ways to unlock the equity in their homes while maintaining financial stability.

Throughout the episode, Frank Borg shares his deep knowledge and expertise on reverse mortgages, explaining how they can empower seniors to maximize their financial resources. Listeners will gain a comprehensive understanding of how reverse mortgages work, the eligibility criteria, and the potential pros and cons associated with this financial tool.

The conversation delves into various topics, including the flexibility of reverse mortgages, the impact on inheritance, and the responsibilities of the borrower. Frank addresses common misconceptions surrounding reverse mortgages and sheds light on the crucial factors to consider before making a decision.

Furthermore, the episode offers real-life stories and testimonials from seniors who have successfully utilized reverse mortgages to downsize their homes and improve their quality of life. These personal accounts provide listeners with a practical understanding of the benefits and implications of choosing this financial path.

Whether you're a senior considering downsizing or a concerned family member seeking guidance for your loved ones, this episode offers invaluable information to help you make informed decisions. Tune in to "Reverse Mortgage: Scam or Savior" and join us as we demystify the world of reverse mortgages and discover how they can be a powerful tool for seniors embarking on their downsizing adventure.

Frank Borg
frank.borg@fairwaymc.com
3400 188th ST SW, STE 185, Lynnwood, WA, 98037
425-949-2889

Transcript

@7:21 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Okay. I'm going to do what I'm going to say this time. Welcome everyone to episode 15 of Getting Your Edge, How to Write Size Your Home and Life Podcast with my guest host, Judy Gratton.

I'm going to stay and our guest today is Frank Borg of Fairway Mortgage, an independent company. He's here to talk about reverse mortgages.

And Frank, can you give us a little bit of information about you and your company?

@8:00 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Sure Dennis, happy to be here. Fairway independent mortgage company has been around for over 30 years. Steve Jacobson founded it as a company to really focus on the consumer and the customer and our borrowers and our business partners.

We lend in all 50 states. Some of our traditional loan products include conventional DAF, FHA, USDA renovation loans. So we really are well distributed in terms of the products that we can offer.

I began in the mortgage industry back in 2001. I was a performing artist that was transitioning out of a previous career and landed in this career and really have enjoyed it.

And so I've been doing reverse mortgages as my principal type of outreach to educate and provide services to older homeowners as they're moving into the retirement years since 2020 and Just very excited for this product and have the opportunity to share Some of the details in the myths and educate your audience on what these loans are all about So what performing career?

Yeah, I was I was I started out in life as an actor I went to college to major in theater and discovered ballet and And so I switched my major to ballet sometime in the middle of my sophomore year got a dance degree instead of a theater degree and I dance professionally in Kansas City and Oklahoma City for five years Wow I was good time for 11 years.

@9:54 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So I I know you're Although I never did anything professionally. I was in like a Oh non-professional group, but I know you're paying.

@10:03 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

It was incredibly rewarding. Yes, that's. And I still perform.

@10:09 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So, really?

@10:10 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Oh, cool. A local company here in Edmonds called Olympic Ballet Theatre.

@10:15 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I know. Ballet Theatre.

@10:17 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Okay. Well, I do. They're not cracker every year and I just finished sleeping beauty over the weekend. And I've done a few other work pieces with them when they need a, an older character role that has some professional dance experience.

It's really fun.

@10:32 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Well, we will have to come and see you.

@10:35 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Definitely.

@10:36 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Well, Frank, can you give us an idea for people who don't understand what is a reverse mortgage and how does it work?

@10:44 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

That's probably a huge question. So. Great place to start. So, you know, the first thing to say about a reverse mortgage is, you know, first of all, it's a loan, just like in each other loan.

But it's a special type of loan that allows homeowners 62. or over convert some of their equity into cash either in the form of monthly payments or a line of credit or lump sum while they're still living in the home.

And so the fundamental difference between a reverse mortgage and a traditional mortgage is that during the term of the reverse mortgage, no monthly mortgage payments are required.

The homeowner or the borrower still has to pay their taxes and their insurance and keep the home maintained. But what it does is it allows a homeowner who wants to stay in their home convert some of their equity they've built over time into money to use for any purpose that they'd like and no payments are required other than the ones I just mentioned.

@11:51 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So what is the simplest way on their home? Does that get wrapped? How does what happened? What happens with that loan?

What is that? How does that work?

@12:03 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Yeah, you were about to actually answer your own question. We really wrap the mortgage that's in place currently into the reverse mortgage.

So if somebody has a regular mortgage that they're paying on and they're interested in doing a reverse mortgage, depending upon how much that they can qualify to borrow, and we can go into how much you get, maybe in another question.

But as long as there is enough equity in the home to cover the payoff balance of that current mortgage, then we just pay off that mortgage and convert that into the reverse mortgage.

And in many cases, they have money left over to spend in the way I just read earlier. In some cases, it's close.

But what they do, even if it's close, what they end up doing is eliminating... or making optional the payment that they're currently making on their own by converting it into a reverse image.

@13:07 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Now the reverse mortgages has been around a long time. Whenever I mention to people they immediately think scam, why is that?

@13:18 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Well, yeah, it has been around quite a while. The first reverse mortgage was done in 1961 and I think it was the federal housing finance authority or whatever regulatory body was in power at that time did a pilot program to test this out.

If you fast forward into the late 80s, the federal housing administration, overseen by HUD, adopted the reverse mortgage into their program and they called it the home equity conversion mortgage.

So it has been around a long time and ever since HUD adopted that program they have continued fully updated and made changes to the program depending upon kind of the economic factors in terms of learning how to make them safer, making sure that borrowers were successful in the program.

So there have been always been changes. Now, the part of your question where you get the loan program, you know, really pre-2014, okay, especially at that moment in the financial crisis around 2008, with equity values dropped, there was some financial hardships.

The short version is the program had some flaws in it that allowed loan officers to improperly get some from one into one of these loans.

So the mortgage itself has never been a scam. However, because prior to some of the changes that I can talk to you about now, there were not safeguards in place to protect borrowers in the instances when a loan officer in the interest of getting them more money or just making the loan happen, made it possible to put people at risk.

And so, I mean, I can give you kind of a specific example of one of those reasons that they think it's a scam and kind of tell you how that's changed if that would be helpful.

@15:40 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

That would be really helpful, thank you.

@15:42 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Okay, so I started out a lot of the seminars I do by telling this story. So let's just go back in time, let's just say the year is 2000.

And Bob and Mary, they come to me and they wanna get a reverse mortgage. And so I talk to them and we go through

their scenario and I say, well, okay, this is how much you can get for this loan. This is how much you're available equity is and what HUD says I can loan to you.

And they say, oh, you know, we were really looking, we're really hoping that we could get a little bit more money.

And so as a loan officer back then, and I'm not really considering the risks, I say, well, you know, Bob, you're 12 years older than Mary.

And so, you know, one of the things that we could do is we could take Mary off the loan and just use your age because you're older rather than using Mary's age.

And because you're older, HUD says I can loan you more money because your life expectancy is shorter. And they say, oh, okay, more is better.

So yeah, let's do that. You know, let's do that. And so everything seems fine for a while. You know, they get their more money that they wanted and everything's going along.

But You know, something happens, you know, 10 years in 2010, let's just say Bob passes away. You know, something happens and he's gone now and it's just Mary in the house.

Now, under the old rules, because Mary wasn't a borrower on that loan, she did not have the protections and the rights that Bob had when he got the loan.

So once Bob passed away or permanently moved out of the house, Mary had to figure out how to pay that loan on.

And at this point, Mary's, you know, in her late 70s and, you know, the market has declined in 2010.

There's not enough equity to actually let her get her own reverse mortgage and she didn't have the financial capability to get a regular mortgage.

She didn't have the money to pay it off. So guess what happened to Mary?

@17:57 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

She lost her house.

@17:59 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

She lost her house.

@18:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

She got four. closed up.

@18:01 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

And, you know, I'm sure both of you will agree with me. I mean, probably one of the worst things that you can do for your service or product is kick grandma out of her home right after her husband dies.

Right? And so the reason I laid it with this story is because HUD saw this happen. And it happened a lot, not just for that very reason, but for some other, there are other reasons that you can default on a reverse mortgage.

But HUD realized that this is a big problem with the program. And so HUD changed the rules. So what they did is they changed the rules to say that even if somebody doesn't want to be on the line, if you're married, then the non-borrowing spouse, in the non-borrowing spouse, from www.lubycovis.com.

For our purposes, a non-borrowment is in the individual who died from the disease. Was that Alexa? Hi, Alexa.

@19:07 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Is that what you mean?

@19:08 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

So I don't know why she started talking. So the way they changed the rule is that instead of being able to do what Bob and Mary did initially, there's no option to do that.

If Bob and Mary are married, even if for some reason Mary doesn't want to be on that loan, we use her age.

We use the youngest spouse's age in calculating how much loan they can get. So if something happens to Bob later on, Mary as a non-borrowing eligible spouse still gets the deferral that allows her to live in the home the rest of her life without making that mortgage payment.

So that one thing, changed the whole landscape and made these loans much safer.

@20:04 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So why do you get a higher rate or a higher amount of money if, I mean, I get it that they're not around this one, but then that wouldn't the home not have as much time to appreciate?

Wouldn't it, it seems to me like you should get a higher rate of your younger than if you're older.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

@20:24 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

I think I do. So the rationale or the thought behind giving a borrower more loan amount if they're older versus younger has to do with life expectancy period.

So an 85 year old borrower who gets a reverse mortgage is not going to have that loan statistically as long as a 62 year old borrower.

@20:53 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So, so what I'm thinking now along those lines is then the lender is not going to make as much money.

off that loan, either way, either in interest or selling the home and the appreciation is shorter than it would be.

If someone lives for three years or five years versus someone living for 10 years in a home, it's going to appreciate differently.

@21:22 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

So that's a good point. Once this loan is done, once we originate and close a reverse mortgage, the question of the property value and what happens to that property is moved off the whole table.

Okay, the only time the property value matters in a reverse mortgage or two times is when we set the loan up in the first place because that helps us determine how much we can loan because it will be some percentage of the property value up to the maximum that HUD loan should.

@22:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And is that based on an appraisal of a current appraisal?

@22:04 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

It is based on an appraisal and FHA appraisal. It's based on the age of the youngest borrower and it's based on the prevailing interest rates at the time we do the loan.

So going back to your question. So yes, I mean in certain situations lenders ultimately will make more money on some reverse mortgages and less money on others.

And it is a commercial product that lenders will make money on. The reason that HUD adopted this and the reason for this loan though is to provide a way for older homeowners to stay in their home longer without being financially compromised.

And so HUD says, okay, if you're older. We're going to let you have more of your equity because you're going to use it for less amount of time.

@23:06 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Okay.

@23:07 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

And so maybe in that kid's situation, the lender ultimately will get less interest. You're right. Then a younger bar, but the younger borrower at 62, if we gave them more equity or more access to money, then the chances that that loan is going to grow over and above the priority is very high.

So we limit how much money we can borrow at the younger age.

@23:33 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I see.

@23:34 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Okay. There's the difference. Does that make sense here?

@23:37 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yes, it does. Thank you. So age is obviously part of the eligibility to get a reverse mortgage. Are there any other requirements for eligibility for a reverse mortgage?

@23:53 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Sure. You have to own your home. First of all, you have to be on title. You can have a loan on it.

It's fine, but you have to own the home. and live in the home as your primary residence. And you'd have to, we talked about age, it'd be 62 years old.

And those are really the only two requirements. Now, if somebody owns their home, but intends to move in a short amount of time, I'm going to sell my house in a couple of years, then this may not be a good solution for them.

Because this loan does cost more than a traditional mortgage, and I can talk about that if you can go on.

But the only two primary requirements are, they have to earn three. I'll add one more. They have to have enough equity to do the loan.

Let's just say if they have an underlying mortgage already, if they have a mortgage already, and it's 85% of the value of their house, then they're not going to be able to benefit in most cases from doing a reverse mortgage.

You know, without bringing money of their own. to pay that down. So equity, age, and intent to live in the property are really the three primary requirements to live to get the reverse mortgage.

@25:12 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And when you say it costs more, are we talking interest rates or are we talking upfront fees?

@25:17 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

What are we referring to in that? Sure, the upfront fees which are generally funded out of the loan proceeds just so you know, in 99.99% of the time the borrowers do not write a jacket closing.

For any of the upfront fees, basically there's a, you know, to close one of these, we're going to use a little tiny slice of the equity to fund the closing costs.

And I'll talk about those too. But the rates actually, they're really lined with current interest rates at the time you do the loan.

So the rate. Differential is not very different. Now, what makes these loans cost more than your traditional mortgage loan disbursement foremost?

The fee that the borrowers pay to HUD as the Department of Housing and Urban Development in order to ensure this loan.

All right. And now that fee is 2% of the value of the property.

@26:22 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Okay.

@26:23 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Okay. Up to this maximum claim amount that HUD limits, which is $1,089,300. Now that I don't mean to throw out numbers like that.

But so the maximum upfront mortgage insurance premium that a borrower will pay is 2% of $1,089,300. But we're going to base all of our calculations on that maximum amount.

@27:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

as we can. And so that long for someone in a four million dollar house or five million dollar house something.

@27:07 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

I mean we have a lot of million dollar houses now in the state so absolutely. And so that's twenty thousand dollars if it's a million dollar house that fee that goes right to HUD is twenty thousand dollars.

@27:20 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And that yeah I see okay.

@27:23 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

So essentially paying mortgage insurance but instead of a monthly with your mortgage payment like a new borrower in FHA so you're paying the mortgage insurance upfront.

@27:37 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

It actually works exactly like FHA in that regard. Your traditional FHA loan has an upfront mortgage insurance premium and a monthly premium right.

And the home equity conversion mortgage or hecum as we call them that FHA ensures has that upfront premium and then there's a monthly premium.

the point five percent annually. So there is a monthly as well. Now I do want to, if you can allow me the space to do this, you know, it's like, wow, you know, $20,000 sounds like a big, big amount to do a mortgage model.

So what that does is that guarantees several things for the borrowers, right? So that insurance guarantees that no matter what happens, that borrower will always be able to live it in that home and never have to repay that loan until the last remaining borrower permanently leaves the home.

So even if, even if the borrowers are moving, they are, they're moving along wonderfully, their loan balance is going up because interest to cruise on these, and let's just say property values drop below that loan balance.

Well, because of this insurance premium and because it's insurance. Third by HUD, HUD pays the lender for their loan no matter what.

And the borrower still is able to live in that home the rest of their lives. And it's because all of these borrowers that pay this mortgage insurance premium into HUD when they do these loans create this pool of money available so lenders will lend on the product.

And it protects the homeowners from never being responsible for any amount of the value of the loan over the property value.

Did that make sense the way I said that? And so that's one guarantee. Again, if a borrower has a line of credit associated with one of these reverse mortgage loans, because that's a way you can get your money is through a reverse line of credit, then even if the lender that's doing that,

that loan goes out of business. And even if the property value drops below the value of that loan, that line of credit is insured by HUD and guaranteed never to go away, never to be cancelled.

And I can tell you from personal experience, when our home value went down in 2009 and 10, we got a letter from our bank saying, I'm sorry, your home value declined, we're freezing your line of credit.

Even though our payment history was good, even though we have made all our payments on time and we're intending to live in there, we didn't have access to that money anymore.

Imagine if you're very far along in your life and relying on that line of credit to help you with emergencies or funds and then getting a letter from your lender saying, sorry, that money's not insured from the borrower that their money's always available.

And also their heirs or their estate will never be responsible for paying off a reverse mortgage. These loans are what we call non-recourse, which means only the property security loan.

So, even if somebody lives a super long time and they're upside down in the loan and they die, the estate is not responsible for any amount of that.

@31:25 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

But now, if the home does appreciate and it's worth more than the loan, then the balance that the loan would be taken out, paid off, if someone passes away or sells, and then the balance would be part of the estate or the owner would be able to do whatever they were going to do with that balance.

@31:49 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Absolutely. Absolutely. That works just like a traditional mortgage. If mom and dad pass away and they've got a regular first mortgage on the property and there's equity and the kids decide, do we want to.

keep the house and they pay that loan off, right? And then they keep the house or do we want to sell the house and get the equity?

Then they do that. The payoff on a reverse mortgage is the same as a payoff on a traditional mortgage.

@32:12 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Okay, I love these questions I get to educate.

@32:16 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Well, I hear people say things like, well, I've got a reverse mortgage. So, you know, when I died, my home goes to the bank.

Is that correct?

@32:30 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

No, I mean, not categorically. I mean, I could imagine a situation where somebody passes away, the kids don't, the heirs don't want the house and the loan balance is more than the property than sure.

Then the bank gets the house. But if there's equity, it's exactly what I said. Then the heirs can decide whether they want to keep the home, get their own conventional mortgage to pay

that's the loan off or they want to sell the house and keep the remaining funds. That's their choice. And another thing that that fee guarantees in the case where an air may want to keep the home even in the situation if the loan balance is higher than the property value, the payoff, this is another thing that the fee guarantees, the payoff on a reverse mortgage can never be more than the property value, actually never be more than 95% of the property value.

And so for any real estate professionals listening, you know that means that they could qualify for your regular conventional loan if they wanted to keep the house.

Even if the house was upside down a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars, if we had a terrible real estate correction and heirs can keep that house.

So the payoff is never more than the property value.

@34:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And by that you're just saying that if they can get the heirs could get a conventional loan and And pay off the loan and keep the house because okay, that makes Oh, I was not aware of that.

@34:14 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah Are there different kinds of reverse mortgages or is it just kind of all one package?

@34:21 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

There are so the primary one that we talk about is the one in shirt is the is the home equity conversion mortgage by FHA Now Judy you had mentioned, you know, you know, two million three million four million dollar homes We do have what we call proprietary reverse mortgages Which are not which are not part of that and we also call a jumbo reverse mortgages So if somebody does have a higher value property and they want to take advantages of a reverse mortgage Those are options now they vary by state The way those loans work, but it is a solution for people in certain circumstances

to use one of these proprietary products. Fundamentally, they work the same, but there are differences that quite likely go beyond the scope of our time here.

@35:11 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So on the HUD reverse mortgage that we were initially talking about, that's nationwide, correct? That's a federal program. So anyone and any, because we do have people that listen from other states.

@35:26 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Absolutely. So the rules that govern how those loans are done come from HUD. And so somebody doing a home equity conversion mortgage in Florida is going to have the same requirements in protection as another person doing home equity, a HHA home equity conversion mortgage in Wisconsin.

@35:50 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

But the jump ones are the ones that are different.

@35:53 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Those are going to vary. Those are going to vary. And there are certain state overlays that make, that have some new,

nuances, but it's, you know, HUD says HUD gives us the formula regarding how much somebody qualifies for in terms of the proceeds they may be able to get the reverse mortgage.

So that won't vary, like you can talk to me and if you go talk to two other people about an FHA loan, as long as we're age, there's not going to be any difference on those loan amounts.

So.

@36:34 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Just to clarify the amount that they receive is based on the appraisal and on the age of the borrower, correct?

Yes. So is there a percentage? Could you say you get 75%? You get whatever of the value, there's some rough ideas?

@36:55 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Yeah, no, there is. So it changes from year to year because also the sack of. and interest rates are factored in there as well.

And then HUD also revises their principal tables that we use to determine this from year to year. But right now at the time of this recording, you're looking at about 32% equity that somebody at age 62 could access.

So 32% of the home value and that maximizes at just over 70% as we get older. So there's not a lot of difference between what I can loan an 85 year old borrower and a 90 year old borrower.

So it kind of goes like this and then it sort of maxes out at a point. But it's really between about 32 and 72% of equity or of value of the home that one can access depending upon their age.

@37:53 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Right now if you're picking up, say the home has already got a loan on it and that's gonna be rolled into the new river.

first mortgage, that's inclusive in that 32 to 7. Okay. Yes.

@38:06 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

So, yes. So once we pay off that loan, if they don't have a mortgage on it, then I can tell the borrower, Hey, you have access to this much money, right?

Right. But if they do have a loan, I say, well, we have to pay this loan off. So you have access to this much money.

Okay. But we've eliminated the mortgage payment. And that's one of the main reasons that people do this other than accessing the cash.

@38:29 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You know, somebody with a mortgage that 78 years old trying to retire, you know, is really going to be benefiting from not having to make that mortgage payment.

Well, and I think what we were talking to one of our other guests was talking about, you know, when people stay in their homes, part of the problem is maintaining the home, having the funds to maintain the home.

If it needs to be roof or it needs whatever. And this would, you know, even if it's a small amount, it would probably address that issue.

You know, their payment goes away and there's some protection there to maintain the home. So the value stays.

@39:06 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Absolutely. No, my last client, I mean, I can give you a real life example. One of my last clients, she was referred to me by her financial planner who I met with because I do work with a lot of financial planners and she was having to take a lot of money out of her investments to meet her expenses and she needed to do her floors and she needed to do a lot of other things.

So he said, maybe you need to call Frank and see if this is a good solution for you. And we did reverse mortgage for her and I've eliminated her mortgage payment and she has access to a line of credit that she used to redo all the floors in her house.

She's super happy. She doesn't have a mortgage payment anymore. Her financial planner is working with her to budget for paying the taxes and insurance, which she could actually use the reverse mortgage to do that.

But yes, this mortgage allowed her. to preserve her investment account so she could have a better quality of life, improve her home, so she feels wonderful that she has a nice new floors, and she doesn't have a mortgage payment anymore.

@40:12 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

She loves this.

@40:14 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

And there are so many people in that same situation.

@40:17 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So we've talked a lot about benefits of the reverse mortgage programs. Are there any downsides to it that people should be aware of or?

@40:29 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Sure. So the downsides to the reverse mortgage, you know, we look at basically, and I'll answer this in this way.

There are basically three groups of people who aren't really good candidates for a reverse mortgage. The first group are people that if you're not intending to live in your home for at least three years or longer, then this is a very expensive way to do it.

Right? So. So when you look at these loans, the upfront costs over time make sense. And typically that's about three years or longer.

And so the costs sort of kind of distribute themselves out over time based on the additional benefits. But that's one downside is you don't want to do this long if you're planning on moving next year.

I mean, I actually have clients that we have that conversation. I said, OK, well, this is not the solution for you because it's a really expensive way to get access to your money.

The other group of people that aren't really good candidates, I would say in general, are people who. Let me put it this way.

If you are a person that doesn't manage your money very well, right, you spend every dollar that you have.

And you're always you know, you're just having trouble. managing your finances. Suddenly having access to all of this home equity could be problematic because if you were to spend it all, then you're not really helping yourself.

No, there could be a disadvantage for someone who's not getting professional advice, who doesn't really have the discipline or the practical behaviors to use the funds judiciously.

And I'm not saying people should travel with this. These loans, I mean, they're to help people have fun and do things in retirement rather than not.

But what we've found is people who really, really have trouble budgeting and managing their funds are not the best candidates because you can spend all, I mean, that is one of the things that happened in the past with some of the product changes we eradicated it.

But people would get a reverse mortgage and they would spend all of their available funds the first year.

@43:05 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

It would just spend it all.

@43:07 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

They would just buy, buy, buy, do I don't know whatever, but they would just they would just blow it all in the first year.

Well, then what happens is they don't have money to pay their taxes anymore and they're in the same financial situation that they were in before.

Yes, they can live in the home the rest of their life, but can do they have the financial resources to pay their taxes?

They're insurance to buy food. And so those people in general are not the best candidates.

@43:32 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Is that something that you can you determine that in the process?

@43:39 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

I love it. I love that you asked that question because the safeguards that we put that HUD put in to protect against that are one HUD limits how much you can access in a reverse mortgage in the first year.

Oh, okay. Right. So it's I won't go over the exact details, but basically, you know, Overall, you might be able to get this much.

Well, HUD says, OK, but your first year limit is this much. And what they found is that if people could get through the first year managing their money, what they let them have in the first year, then they were more likely to be successful.

So that's one safeguard that was actually put in place on the loans to protect against that. The other one is that these mortgages require the borrowers to go to a HUD approved counselor.

And so the counselor is a third party. I cannot tell them who to go to. I give them a list of available HUD counselors, and they pick them one of those lists.

And the counselor does basically a financial consultation with them to make sure they understand the mortgage, to make sure that they understand the risks and the benefits.

And they look at their finances, they look at their monthly bills, and they give them an opportunity to walk through with the borrowers to kind of understand how best to manage their financing.

And that was a requirement that the counseling became mandatory sometime between 2014 and 2016 as well. And then yes, to answer your question directly.

That is, I mean, I'm measured by how successful my borrowers are. So if I'm working with a bar or and it appears that, you know, they're, they're.

Maybe at risk of not being successful with this loan. Then I'm going to have that hard conversation with them.

And there are other safeguards I can help them put in place to ensure that they're successful. And I can kind of tell you some of those if you'd like, but I don't know how, how detailed you want to get as we can.

You can cover a lot of territory.

@45:45 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Well, I'm not sure.

@45:47 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

What do you think?

@45:48 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I think, I think we're covered on that. There are safeguards there. Yeah.

@45:54 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

All you to if they have no, I appreciate it. Yeah. But yeah. How do we manage helping a borrower ensure that they know how to behave, how to be successful, and use this money to enrich the quality of their lives and not, you know, and not just blow it and be in the same place that they were when they, before they came to.

@46:16 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Okay, we talked about two people one, if you're going to move early in two, if you don't manage your money very well.

@46:24 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

What's the third? Oh, the third is, you know, what we've found is looking at all of these borrowers. The third is somebody who doesn't really understand why they're getting.

You know, I mean, if they don't really have a clear purpose, I want to eliminate my mortgage payment. I want to make sure I can travel more or, you know, have really some specific reasons to get it.

Then, you know, they probably shouldn't get. And that's, it's kind of, I mean, maybe that sounds generic or vague, but there are definitely people out there that could benefit, but either, you know, they just don't understand it or don't want to take the time to understand.

And don't really know why they're doing. And that's not a good candidate for the loan. But as far as the product excel, the downsides and the risks of the products are, you know, there's an interest rate on it.

It's a loan. The loan balance will grow over time. You will consume a little bit of home equity doing a reverse mortgage.

@47:24 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

The question is. Because you're not paying it, so it's being added on top.

@47:27 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Right. If you choose not to pay it, you can make optional payments. There are some great reasons to make voluntary or optional payments on a reverse mortgage.

Really powerful, strong financial reasons why somebody might want to do that. From saving money on taxes, from increasing their overall investment, from increasing the availability of future funds.

Right. So somebody who's still working, for example, who gets a reverse mortgage at an early age. And they're still working.

If they still pretend like they have an mandatory mortgage payment, and so they decide to make the same monthly mortgage payment that they've always been making, well, what happened is they pay the interest on the loan, so the loan's not growing, right?

So they keep the loan balance, but every dollar that that person pays into that reverse mortgage becomes available to them to rebar or for any purpose at any time.

So they're basically paying themselves for access to that money later on when they do become retired. So it's a way to dramatically increase how much someone has access to later in life just by getting it earlier.

So that's an advantage. But if somebody doesn't choose not to make their payments because they're voluntary, then yes, you're gonna consume that money.

This is again, again, it is a commercial product.

@48:58 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

There's an interest rate on it. So I... I have a this this is probably a kind of a crazy question.

What if someone wants to buy a house?

@49:05 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Can they do that with a reverse mortgage? It's not a crazy question and yes you can. That's one thing that I really have that I talked to a lot of real estate professionals about when I do seminars and continuing education is how to use this for a person who is of age to purchase a home.

So in a lot of cases, an older borrower, let's just say if they're downsizing or they want to move closer to their grandkids and they sell their house here and then want to move here.

So generally, the options are either pay cash for the house or get a traditional loan. Well paying cash for the house is great because what do they not have?

They don't have a mortgage. If they get a traditional loan, they don't have to spend as much of their cash, but they have a mortgage payment.

Well, with the reverse mortgage, they can use some of their cash, put down a large down payment, keep the other bucket of cash that they would have spent, and guess what they don't have now?

@50:22 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

A mortgage payment. Brilliant.

@50:25 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

That puts them in more control of their liquid funds, and we know having access and being able to access money for emergencies for any purpose is really valuable.

So it's a very powerful way for someone who is over 62 to use this program to keep more of their own money and their bank account with their financial advisor, qualify, get

@51:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

How do they qualify? What would be on their age?

@51:03 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Are there any? It's just like those people are probably retiring. And yeah, well, it's the same way as if you already owned your home.

OK, so we pretend like you do own the home. We get that appraisal and you're at a certain age.

And let's just say that you qualify for 40% of the value of that property on a reverse mortgage. So we used a million dollar house before, right?

So let's just use that example again. This borrower based on their age and the price value being a million dollars and the rates at the time they qualify for 40% proceeds from a reverse mortgage.

So they're going to take their $600,000 as a down payment. We're going to loan them $400,000 on the reverse mortgage and we close on the home.

Wow. And now instead of them writing it. check for a million dollars to buy this house, they write a check for 600,000 and they've got 400,000 dollars to go give to Edward Jones or you know they're safe in the better home or wherever whatever they want to do with it and they still don't have a mortgage payment for the rest of their life and they have an extra 400,000 dollars that they can use and I don't know by insurance for their their kids.

@52:26 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

But you can't use this on a second home though, a vacation home.

@52:31 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Exactly. You must occupy the property as your private residence and the rule is you have to live in the property for most of a year.

So you know a lot of us in this part of the area they like to live in the homes in the summertime and then Arizona becomes a very attractive place around January.

So they go spend a few months in Arizona. So as long as the home remains your primary residence you live in the house for most of the

year. There's some other nuances that HUD has to expand possibilities. I think maybe a couple wants to go on a missionary trip for some reason with the proper communication as long as that property is the primary residence then you can get the money.

But yes, no, does that not work on second homes? Does that not work on investment property? You cannot get one of these loans as an certifications that do happen.

It's not like a traditional loan where you can get your loan and as long as the lender keeps getting their money they don't care where you go.

This loan you have to stay. You have to live in that's every year.

@53:45 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Not each year.

@53:46 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

But every year. Every year. As long as you have that loan that's the requirement. At least one borrower must occupy the property as that residence for me.

One year alone becomes doing payable.

@54:03 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Okay.

@54:05 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Okay. I can't buy a home with that. That reverse mortgage as another home and then rent out the original.

@54:14 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

You. I'm sorry.

@54:19 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Ask me that. I can't use a reverse mortgage to buy a second home. And then rent out the original that I got the loan from.

@54:33 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Well, first of all, or the second home, the home you're living in.

@54:38 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah.

@54:39 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

You have to intend to occupy the home your purchase as your primary residence. But I would have to look up the precise.

Time frame in terms of how long one. Needs what that is. How long you have to move into that home.

But, you know, there's no reason why you can't keep the original home as long as you have the down payment to qualify for the reverse mortgage.

And you are moving into that home for real, then you could purchase that home for a reverse mortgage. But you couldn't do it as a second home and then qualify for a reverse mortgage.

Does that make sense? Is that clear? Yeah. I mean, there's no, how does it say you have to sell the home you're living in to move and purchase a home with a reverse mortgage?

@55:30 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

What if you have still have a mortgage on that first home?

@55:33 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Does it matter if you qualify for it? It would just go into the financial assessment. There's still so that was another change that happened from 2014 to 16 in terms of a protection to make sure that the borrower could afford to live in that home.

So if they had a mortgage on the previous home and they were buying a new home to reverse mortgage, then we would include the payment of the previous home in the financial assessment.

assessment and that's a calculation based on the number of people in the home, what their maintenance and utility expenses are, what their other credit expenses are, and what their income sources are, security pension, etc.

They have to document that they have residual income to meet their basic needs once they get a reverse mortgage.

@56:20 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Wow, I've learned more.

@56:27 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

I'm so grateful for this opportunity.

@56:30 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And I think in our market, well, at least so far, since 2010, we lost maybe a little bit last year, it seems to be coming back in terms of appreciation on property.

At one point, I did, and this was probably around 2010. I had a potential client who had a reverse mortgage and she wanted to see if it was going to work for her to be able to sell the home.

And at that point, she had lost equity. And so she did owe more. in the mortgage, the reverse mortgage was work.

And I, you know, so it did not work out for her at that point in time, but. So when you talk about how headers can change requirements and change how the reverse mortgage works, if someone buys a home under a reverse mortgage and the requirements in the, operation rules, I don't know what else to call it, of the mortgage that they accepted the time they signed.

If they're changed next year, does it go back, is it, does it go back and reflect on their current mortgage?

@57:45 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Or do they, do they stay with what they accepted in their, does that make sense to you? No, it does.

And so to answer, you answered your own question. No, they, they get to live and operate under the terms of that loan that.

they got at the time they received that loan.

@58:03 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Okay, great.

@58:04 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Even if it changes their stuff.

@58:08 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah.

@58:08 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

And sometimes it gets better, right? So sometimes it gets better. So people can have a benefit of being in a reverse and years later refinancing into a new reverse.

@58:22 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Oh, okay.

@58:23 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

It can be a benefit. I think it's fine. But no, once they get that, that they, if us changes something that makes it more restrictive, let's say, they are...

Grandfather Dan. Well, they're not grandfathered in. The controlling or the operating document is the deed of trust in the mortgage note.

So I think all the terms and conditions are recorded as public record and it's a legal document is binding.

So they don't have to abide by the new ones. But there are cases where they can really benefit a lot of people when the rates went down, did refinances like that.

So...

@59:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You keep in contact with your clients once they close and if something like that happens where maybe rates are better or whatever that they they could.

Do you. More.

@59:12 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

More so. Yeah, more so than your traditional loans. I am frequently in contact with the borrowers that I close.

I mean, they they call me when they get their tax bill. You know, if they get their monthly statement and they want to figure out how to get a draw, they call me.

I mean, I spend so much time with my borrowers and the people that I work with to do this moment that we've become very close.

And and just the group of people that this loan is for really appreciate that hands on approach and they love to just be able to pick up the phone and text me and call me.

I mean, I'm taking one of my. Week because you know she just likes to go eat tacos with me every couple of months.

And we do it. So yeah, that's one of the things that I personally love about these loans and working with this these these borrowers is I have really Sincerely good relationships with them and I'm happy to help them in many ways.

You know, even just setting up their online account when they get their loaned how to How to access their money how to see what it is even though they get statements I helped borrowers Actually helped them understand that they could qualify for a senior tax exemption They didn't even know how to do it and I helped them through Getting that senior tax exemption just because I knew it would help them out.

So to answer your question I remain in contact with all of my my my borrower some reach out to me more than others But definitely if there's an opportunity If there's something that's important for them to know then I like to maintain that relationship I know for years.

@1:00:55 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I I was very you know, I had heard they were scams and that they weren't good and end to this day

people still think that, but the first time that I saw you speak, I was really impressed at how much that this loan product has changed.

And I really think it's a really good tool for a lot of people that are considering downsizing and, you know, to help them out during their as path-sporking age.

@1:01:26 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

So it definitely is. And we have a very large way of people retiring in this country.

@1:01:33 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Ten thousand people a day for the next 20 years or 22 in this country.

@1:01:40 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Yeah.

@1:01:41 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

So, yeah. Frank, I'm going to ask you what this big rise in interest rates this year and recently, how has that affected the reverse mortgage?

@1:01:52 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Well, the main impact it had on reverse mortgages was, remember I said one of the factors that we use in determining how much someone can borrow is the prevailing interest rates at the time.

And so when the rates went up, the amount of loan that we could extend to the borrowers went down.

And so as rates go higher, what we can loan to borrowers goes less. And that's because if rates are higher, interest is going to accrue faster, so they limit the amount that you can borrow.

But that's the main impact. It is just that the principal limits, that's what we call it in reverse mortgage.

But the loan amount for the purposes of this meeting here is less when the rates are higher.

@1:02:52 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Are the rates tied at all to the to the borrowers' credit? Credit ratings.

@1:03:00 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Oh, great question. No, as no. There is a credit assessment on these loans, but it doesn't have any impact on the interest rate that they pay, the costs that they pay, or any feature like that.

It is not credit score dripping. There's no minimum credit score. Now, if a borrower, if someone has some credit that has challenges on it, if they have late payments on their mortgage, for example, or late payments on installing accounts for late property taxes, these things, we will still be able to do, in most cases, a reverse mortgage for it.

But remember when I said that the borrower has to pay their property taxes and their insurance and maintain the property.

In cases where a borrower doesn't meet the requirements of the credit review, then, The lender puts what we call a set aside.

So we reserve some of the money that we would have been able to loan them. Sort of like an escrow account.

It is like an escrow account, but it's an escrow account that we fully fund for the rest of their lives.

@1:04:24 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Oh, wow.

@1:04:25 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

So it's a big account, but it's not real. It's not real. We just say, okay. If I can loan you, you can get a line of credit or you have access to $200,000, right?

But we determine that for some reason, you can't make your own taxes and your insurance. And so we're going to make them for you.

And the calculation for the property charges for the rest of your life is $100,000. And suddenly we're only going to let you have access to $100,000.

Okay. And the remaining is going to be set aside. side to pay your taxes and to pay your insurance each month.

Okay, I just had a bar were closed for this very reason, but that's why he wanted to do it anyway.

He has very expensive property taxes he was trying to decide whether or not he wanted to retire and one of the critical things was his property taxes were very expensive.

And so he's happy that he has this set aside because he knows that he can retire now and not have to worry about his taxes or his insurance for the rest of his life.

Now and the interest only accrues when it's actually distributed. So the set aside is just we're not going to let you touch this.

We're going to just pay your taxes and your insurance out of it. And here's your bucket that you can have for your credit, your monthly payments or your lump sum.

A lot of information.

@1:05:54 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

A lot of information. I have questions about the options people have. with a reverse mortgage that they get into it, you know, they have limits on how much they can take the first year, but are there other options like having a monthly payment or a lump sum per year or even a giant lump sum to buy an RV?

@1:06:20 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Great. Yes. So there are three ways you can get your money, right? And you actually touched on all three of them, right?

So the first one would be monthly payments, okay? And there's two types of monthly payments you can get. So on the one hand, we can say, I just want monthly payments for the rest of my life, tell me how much I can qualify for, right?

And there's a calculation that HUD uses based on how much we can loan you and says, okay, you're going to get $1,000 a month out of this loan for the rest of your life.

And set it and forget it. Some monthly payments. The other one is, you know, let's just say, for example, somebody says, well, I want monthly payments, but I don't need them for the rest of my life.

I really just want monthly payments until I apply or fall for until I want to start taking Social Security.

And so I'm going to I'm going to apply for Social Security in three years. I want monthly payments for three years and then I want The rest To handle the rest later.

So those are the two options for monthly payments. You determine either for life or a temporary period of time.

The other option is, yeah, I want a certain amount of money in cash because I want to buy an RV.

And my RV is going to be $100,000 or whatever it is. And if you have access to that much money and you want an RV, then at closing, you know, title or escrow company is going to cut you or why.

You $100,000 into your account and then you can go buy your RV and whatever is left over if you haven't used all of it.

You could have on The third option, which is a line of credit. And that works really similarly to a traditional home equity line of credit in that you have access to this amount of money that you can draw on for any purpose at any time and use it.

And only money that you borrow that you've actually taken from that line of credit goes into the loan that starts accruing interest.

Now, each one of those three monthly payments, cash, and line of credit, you can do any one, a two, or a combination of all three of those things.

So that's why you have to sit down with someone to kind of figure out these options that you do have lots of different options for these loans.

@1:08:46 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Well, that's fantastic. Frank, I took your little seminar and I've learned so much more again. You've been so helpful.

@1:08:57 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Thank you.

@1:08:57 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I think this will help people understand.

@1:09:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah. Is there any questions we're missing? Anything we haven't touched on?

@1:09:06 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Yeah, I'll tell you just directly to all of your listeners, don't be afraid to get a consultation. That's it.

These ones take a lot of time to understand they've changed reverse mortgages, got seat belts and airbags between 2014 and 2016.

And they're not what you think they are. That's the message that I want to get out is people have the wrong idea about this.

There is no downside to exploring or investigating how this may work for an individual. And I, you know, and that's what I'm here to do.

So, and if it's not me, you know, do your own investigation, learn more about them, call somebody else, but don't wait until later to just find out

about him because what I'll tell you is that every loan officer in my branch who is over 62 has a reverse mortgage.

Wow, I will get a reverse mortgage when I'm 62. I'd say most people in my company, at fairway independent mortgage company, who are eligible, who own their homes and have enough equity, have reverse mortgages.

They have a, you know, 90% of people who get reverse mortgages are satisfied to extremely satisfying. So there's a lot of fear in just having the conversation.

And so I just want to help people open up to exploring.

@1:10:44 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Go ahead, you were going to ask. What if someone has a home with a reverse mortgage and they do decide to sell and there's some equity there and they're going to buy again.

@1:10:54 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

They could close out that one reverse mortgage and get another one if they wanted to. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

@1:11:01 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Is the consultation free?

@1:11:03 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Absolutely. It's totally free to speak with me. I mean, I, you know, this is, again, it's a product and a service and I'm compensated to do reverse mortgages, but just the same as y'all.

You know, you don't charge borrowers up front to, to, you know, to show them lots of houses. So the more people that I can help and that I can talk to and share the story about reverse mortgages.

The better it's going to be for everybody in the country. So no, they should call me without hesitation and I will educate anyone.

@1:11:38 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Can you help people out of the state of Washington or can you refer them to someone out of the state of Washington if we have any listeners out of state?

@1:11:47 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Absolutely. There. You know, we are under state licensing. So I can originate personally in Washington and Texas. I have other loan officers in my office who are licensed.

in other states. And if nobody let's just say in my office is licensed to originate in a state where you have somebody, then I can refer them internally in fairway.

We have a very strong reverse mortgage lending division where one of the top reverse mortgage lending institutions in the nation, second in reverse for purchases.

We've been the fourth largest lender for your regular traditional reverse mortgages. Our company spends a lot of time and resources on making sure that the loan officers at fairway who do these loans follow a very consultative educational approach.

This is a very consultative process. And so yes, I would be able to refer anybody to any state.

@1:12:51 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So we will be posting your information on our blog or on our podcast. But Just just to let people know, how can they get ahold of you?

@1:13:03 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

What's the best way? The best way you can go to my website, which is my last name, Borg, reverse.com.

And that'll just take you right to my landing page. That's the most deficient way that I can tell you to do that.

I can give you my phone number right here too. Sure. I just picked up the phone and call me.

That's 425-949-2889. My office is here in Linwood. I can see the alderwood mall right out my window. And so I'm local and I'm here to help.

@1:13:38 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Great information, Frank. Thank you so much. I think this really helps some people.

@1:13:46 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I hope it does.

@1:13:47 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Thank you.

@1:13:52 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Perfect. That's it for today's episode number 15 of getting your edge, how to right size, your home and life podcast.

We're so happy to be here. Thanks again, Frank Borg, a fairway mortgage. And thank you, Judy.

@1:14:05 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Thank you, Dennis.

@1:14:06 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

And that's it. We'll see you next time.

@1:14:09 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Wonderful. Thank you. Bye bye.

@1:14:12 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Thank you, Frank. That was fabulous.

@1:14:15 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

That was really, really good. I've learned.

@1:14:17 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So awesome.

@1:14:20 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

No, I think you're really good. You're pretty good at clarifying and going slow. That people can people like me can keep up with you.

@1:14:34 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

I appreciate that. It's I've learned. I've had to learn.

@1:14:38 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah, you're really good. You're really simplified and I can visualize what you're talking about, which led me to ask you more questions.

Because I'm like, Oh, that happened.

@1:14:50 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

What about this?

@1:14:51 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I'm like, stop it.

@1:14:53 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

We'll be here all day. Very nice of you. Thank you. Yeah. Well, this is, you know, I enjoy doing the consultations.

I enjoy doing the. seminars and and you know, I when I talk to people about this, I often use the term evangelist.

I'm going to reverse mortgage evangelist. So, you know, one of the things that I try to do is get the people that I talk to these loans about to become force multipliers.

So when you go out into the world and you happen to have, you know, an errant comment or some sort of interaction with someone in reverse mortgages come up and you go and they go, oh, that's that that's a scam that that loan where they take their house and you're like, no, you need to understand this.

I just learned from Frank that that's a misunderstanding and you know, it would be worthwhile, you know, so you become an ambassador and can help them sort of know and and it's just going to snowball.

There's 11 trillion dollars in home equity, more than 11 trillion dollars in home equity for people over 62. And, you know, what the loan cost for, you know, for the benefits that that one gets.

I mean, I can show I mean, are we off the record down here? Off the record. So, I mean, most of the benefits that I get really excited about, you know, that work in conjunction with financial planning and tax savings and having people have more spendable income during retirement and actually being able to leave a larger legacy value to the heirs by using one of these loans, then having your house paid off free and clear is amazing.

So, think about your investment bucket, right? So, your financial planner, this is, you know, we work all our lives.

We're putting money into our retirement accounts, right? 401Ks, you know, IRAs and, and. And we're paying our mortgage, right?

And we're putting all this money when we're working into these two buckets. And they're paying off our loan and our equity is going up and we're building up our retirement account.

Well, then people get into retirement and what usually happens to their income.

@1:17:13 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So it's down.

@1:17:14 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Those down, right? Those into fixed income. And so then they start drawing from their retirement accounts. And they're like, sweet, our house is paid off, right?

I'm like, oh, man, I'm sorry you paid your house off. You lost out on some benefits by paying off your house.

And they're like, well, what do you mean? And so there's just this idea that the free and clear that the paid off house is the safest house.

Well, you tell me a single Fortune 500 company that operates on 100% capital and no liabilities.

@1:17:52 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

We're talking about leverage here, correct?

@1:17:54 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Exactly. Exactly. Because putting someone in control, having liquidity, having control. in use of funds. I mean, nobody would say, how dare you spent your 401k when you should have given it to your kids, right?

But somebody will say, oh my gosh, I can't believe you gave a reverse mortgage. You're not going to leave your kids anything.

@1:18:19 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

The fact of the matter is, is all we're doing and the way I work with financial planners, that we're taking the home equity and we're putting it into play.

@1:18:28 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

There have been so many studies that show there's a synergy between what we call a coordinated strategy, right? We built up these two buckets rather than just pulling out of this one, we pull out of this one when appropriate and then we pull out of this one when appropriate, right?

Like this last year, the market down over 25%, right? What if somebody's relying on those distributions for their retirement?

What kind of conversation do you think they're having with their financial planner? Yeah. Oh, you're going to need to cut down your monthly distributions because your portfolio is now at risk for only lasting until you're 78 and not until you're 85.

Well, what if they had had a reverse mortgage in place, and this portfolio is down 20%. And so instead of pulling it out of here, they start drawing from the reverse mortgage.

The funds from the reverse mortgage or tax free. So that gives this portfolio time to grow and recover. I didn't mean to have the proceeds from a reverse mortgage because they're borrowed their tax free.

I mean, this, again, you know, I don't want to overly complicate it, but these are very, very established, very well researched strategies that that honestly, I don't have this kind of conversation with a borrower on an initial consultation.

Right. It's information overload. Okay. Go over this information with them, then, as you know, yes, I talked to financial mainly going to these.

until the financial planners, because we're talking about IRA rollovers or IRA conversions from a traditional IRA to a Roth, paying the taxes with the reverse mortgage can result in net greater assets and less taxes down the road.

Using the reverse mortgage as a buffer asset can help the main retirement account recover and end up leaving a larger net worth at the end of their life than they were if they had just had the home free and clear.

And then just using the reverse mortgage to have fun and enjoy retirement without the stress and anxiety of whether their money is going to last.

I mean it's like I said, everybody that I know in this industry who is old enough and eligible to do one of these wrong either is going to do one or has more.

And so you tell me that what kind of a endorsement that is.

@1:20:55 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Well, we've had people say I'm going to pay cash for that house younger. people live in and it's like why would you?

@1:21:02 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

You know, why would you?

@1:21:03 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

All the cash you have in that one bucket and then you can't touch it. You know, why not? Especially when interest rates were lowered just didn't make any sense right now.

@1:21:13 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

It's not exactly.

@1:21:15 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Can't get anybody to do anything because he ain't right. But they pay cash on the house.

@1:21:20 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

You know, do you have any revolving debt? Is that the highest and best use for that cash? Yeah. I mean, yes, borrowing money costs cost money, right?

It does. But if you ask your question, what am I getting? What am I saying? I now have control of this money, whereas before it's locked in the house.

The only way I can get out of this now is borrow it sometime in the future or sell the asset.

Again, yeah, Google pays a billion dollars for a company. Of course, they've got the cash to do it. They turn around and securitize it or collateralize it right away when they pull it in.

@1:21:57 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I just had a friend. Just had lunch. As a previous client, I sold her parents' homes when they passed away.

So we sat down for lunch and she said, I'm so excited. I just paid off and closed out my HELOC.

And I said, you did what? And she said, I paid off my HELOC loan that I've had for years and years.

And I said, you closed out the HELOC. And she said, yeah. And I said, can you go by the bank on the way?

I said, I'll let you keep it open.

@1:22:26 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

I said, that's your protection. You don't need to take money out of it. And it doesn't cost you anything to have it.

@1:22:33 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

But it was a protection for you that you just closed. And she said, I wish I could talk to you before I did that.

I said, I don't have to do. So they just don't know what they don't know.

@1:22:45 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

So you're, I mean, leverage. You go back to leverage. But it also goes back to fear, too, in what people, you know, this idea that the pay-goch house is the holy grail.

@1:22:56 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Well, that's the holy grail.

@1:22:58 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

And it's not, I mean, yes. I understand it was, you know, a long, long time ago loans were called it, right?

Banks failed, they kept their notes called, you know, and so people were like, I want to pay my house off because I don't want to be beholden to the bank.

Well, nowadays, as long as you make your payments on time, they can't call that loan. Right. You know, there's a stability there.

But one thing I didn't get to tell you about the line of credit on the reverse side, the most powerful feature of it, and I didn't want to confuse anyone because this picture a while to get around, is that the reverse line of credit, the unused portion of it, let's just say you have $100,000 line of credit after we pay off your regular loan, you've got $100,000 line of credit, that unused portion expands at the growth at the interest rate of the loan.

So right now in the current market, somebody with a $100,000 reverse line of credit is getting a six and a half, the seven percent.

Limited rate of return on the growth and accessibility of that line of credit Guaranteed never to be reduced canceled or frozen.

So the line credit gets bigger than yeah I think of it like a credit card limit that is expanding automatically And it's guaranteed I mean it slows the growth slows the interest rates go down But it's not tied to the value of the house even at the value even the real estate market collapses that line of credit Just keeps growing so I've shown several people's scenarios like in their early 60s Right where let's eliminate the mortgage once you're eligible make Voluntary payments get access to that line of credit.

Well now, you know 20 years later They've got a line of credit if they haven't used it when they need it You know, I've seen other scenarios where it's $600,000 money that they have access to that they can spend for any purpose

take a buy their kids an investment property or you know helping me. That's amazing.

@1:25:05 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

That's that's really amazing. Wow Frank thank you so much.

@1:25:10 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

No I mean really thank you for I mean letting you do this and giving out there. We'll send you a link to both the YouTube and the whether it's spot.

@1:25:21 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I don't know do you see how do you send that Dennis? Dennis is the tech guy I'm not and you just said your social media you can do you know you can also send this out to people.

We encourage that because we want okay we want people to know about this and we want obviously for them to be able to utilize your services and of course ours if they're looking to buy ourselves so yeah.

@1:25:50 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Wow. Yeah you can I'll send you the link to the podcast the audio if you wanted the raw audio you know I could get that to you.

And then you can post that. You do.

@1:26:02 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

I love it. Thank you.

@1:26:04 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

The link you can put on your website. You can put it in your social media. Whatever you want to do.

The eventually, not as fast as the podcast because there's, I get it up onto YouTube and sometimes we're taking little snippets of this long session and we're using it in short form video.

And we're finding that it's attracting a lot more people than just, you know, YouTube or putting it on your Facebook or anything like that.

@1:26:40 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Yeah, it's effective. Yeah. Well, I'm, like I said, I really appreciate you inviting me for this and can't wait to see it and see what happens.

You're getting some, and I'm also very happy to hear that you're getting interest in the use because that'll translate to your business and.

providing value to people and that's what we have to do first, right?

@1:27:04 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Well, we kind of built our business around helping people who are downsizing, who are in this reverse mortgage era of their life, where, you know, maybe they have their house paid off, maybe they don't, they're nearing retirement, you know, do they want to live in the big house with expensive taxes and a lot of maintenance and no kids, do the, you know, there's so many options for people to do things.

@1:27:34 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

We haven't even scratched the surface. No, absolutely. It's, yeah.

@1:27:38 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Okay, this is a big one.

@1:27:41 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Thank you, friend. Thank you. Both of you.

@1:27:43 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yes. We'll be hearing from us, I'm sure. Oh, I know what I want to ask you really quick. Do you have any brochure, uh, anything that you would like for us to post as the freebie for this episode that can, you know, they could download some kind of PDF from our,

@1:28:00 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Yeah, absolutely. I will. I have, I mean, I have our consumer brochure, which is wonderful. I mean, this is targeted to like home purchasers, home buyers, you know, this is for the target, your target audiences, right?

@1:28:16 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Right.

@1:28:17 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Right. Okay. So yeah, I'd have the home sellers, home sellers too. Okay.

@1:28:23 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah, no, I know. Whatever.

@1:28:28 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

What to think about when down sizing and whatever you've got that you would like to post on some things and you can take a look at what I've got and decide what you think you want to do.

@1:28:38 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Thank you so much.

@1:28:40 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Okay.

@1:28:41 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Okay.

@1:28:41 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

All right.

@1:28:42 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Judy, can you stay on for just a second? Yeah, I can.

@1:28:45 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

All right. Thanks a lot for me. Judy. Yeah. Great to see you.

@1:28:48 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Okay.

@1:28:49 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

You too. Take care.

@1:28:50 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

All right.

@1:28:51 - Frank Borg (Fathom)

Bye bye.

@1:28:53 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Let me see if I can. I don't know what's happened to this while forward. Do you know the no?

Did you get new glasses? Well, no, these are blue light glasses.

@1:29:10 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Oh, OK.

@1:29:11 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

So since I use my I don't hardly use my glasses when I'm. And Yeah, I was like, I don't recall you wearing glass.

But I just am using the blue light glasses.

SCREEN SHARING: Dennis started screen sharing - WATCH

@1:29:28 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And I remember the reverse mortgage. I mean.

@1:29:33 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

OK, do you see real ball?

@1:29:37 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Oh, yeah, I do.

@1:29:39 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

All right. So I got it all set up, right? Yeah, lined up and then look, it doesn't let me do it.

@1:29:49 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Did you try calling them or contacting them on this?

@1:29:53 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

No, I didn't. Maybe I'll do is I'll take a screenshot.

@1:29:57 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

That's a good idea. And then I would contact. them either through their little chat chatty thing there.

@1:30:03 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Okay.

@1:30:04 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Probably going to be the best way to get their attention. I'm sorry. I'm really.

@1:30:10 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I mean, it's just I had to do it three times. And but then it's all lined up and I like I don't want to quit.

@1:30:20 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I'm just going to say, can you not close that? Well, if I lose it, I think I lose it all.

That's why I said don't close it.

@1:30:29 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

So I think they knock you off eventually, but I'll put it.

@1:30:33 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

No, I think I'm well, it's worth a shot, but I. So when you skip remaining fields, it won't move.

@1:30:42 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Nothing really happens.

@1:30:44 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Don't get another button after you. I hate to ask. Is it spinning? Is anything spinning?

@1:30:52 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Nothing is spinning. Yeah, nothing really happens. And I wasn't sure what to do up here. I mean, it's. are mapping.

@1:31:01 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You want to import contacts. What is that from import all contacts, tags, silver furs, choose existing. What's the drop down menu on that?

@1:31:11 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

It has a whole list of different, I mean, I guess these are like, why is agent? These are places where you probably have like a template for.

@1:31:27 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

They don't have one for that group, do they? That farm? Probably not.

@1:31:36 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Where it comes from? Does it come from low mold?

@1:31:40 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

No wait, what's it called? Can you open your farm up in a different tab?

@1:31:46 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah, it might be that low mold technologies.

@1:31:50 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I'm not. No, that's the MLS. That's the loan one. Go to wherever that farm is. Can you open that farm?

@1:31:58 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Um, I don't know if I have it, but

@1:32:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

We can see you you've got one don't you?

@1:32:05 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah, not the. I've got several farms, but I don't have the.

@1:32:13 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

But you've got Stuart the Stuart farm somewhere.

@1:32:15 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah. We got to put in my password.

@1:32:20 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You do you try and remember your passwords?

@1:32:23 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

You're a. No, it's just that you had this issue with Chrome that I had several different accounts. And. No.

@1:32:37 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

She says you mean that you're opening.

@1:32:41 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Well, I had like. Password saved in this town password saved in this town.

@1:32:48 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

And.

@1:32:49 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

And I'll call the book mark here and bookmarks there and I was like, well, where, you know, where is all this stuff, right?

@1:32:56 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Do you have last pass. It is a free, I'm pretty sure it's free to a certain point where you can save your passwords.

And you give one, I mean, like I have a relatively hard password for it. You don't want to forget that one.

You don't want to forget the password to last pass. But then you put in, it will, if you add it as a widget to Chrome, every time you open up a new site, they'll say, do you want to save that here?

And I save it there. I mean, I know whatever I have, I'm not sure if it's Chrome or what.

It also saves passwords. But last pass, I can access, I can go into the last pass from my phone, I can go into the last pass from a strange computer, and I can find my passwords.

@1:33:52 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I have one that works for my phone here in the computer called E.

@1:33:57 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

What, it may be the same thing. I've just had last. I was passed for years and years. So, okay, so what's it called?

So when you open that up, no wait a minute, what property profile? That's it, property profile. So go back to, and now drop down, and let's see if it says property profile anywhere.

You may hate yourself if it does. Property profile? No. No. What, because I see sales force down there, they're not in alphabetical order, are they?

There's a constant contact. Premier agent, that's what's the one that I was thinking was property profile, but it is not.

Darn it. No, it will happen. That property profile is the name of the actual farm. And it's not in there.

So now we're back to square one trying to figure out how to fill in all these things.

@1:35:10 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Red face chicken gooser.

@1:35:13 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I'm sorry. I would try hitting the contact us button until I'm asking them, you know, this is where I am and I'm stuck.

Sorry. I definitely want to do some reels and I want to. I want to. I have clients that I individually pass clients that I want to send this to you.

Why don't you people just really help. Yeah. Me.

@1:35:53 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I was wondering if this could really help you guys. Where are you on the equity.

@1:35:59 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Oh, we. Probably have 600,000 inequity in this house. How much you have to open? How much the loan? Probably about 400,000.

So we're had a million at least, and you know, we're not going to, I don't think we'll do anything tomorrow.

I'd like to say, hello, Judy. What are you doing? I'd like to see the interest rates go down some, and I think they will.

I think so. But if I could buy something with that too, you know, and then I'd like to talk to him about Skyler and how is there anything in there that would help a just someone with a disability.

Could he be on the loan so he could continue to stay in the house and maybe we could get, you know, I don't know.

I don't know.

@1:37:00 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

to pay on your loan.

@1:37:01 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

2% 2% high. Yeah, so it's really hard to. This is actually a good time if you don't plan on using the money.

Yeah, see, I could continue to work. And pay into it for later. But I really don't want to. I don't want to do it on this house.

I don't. This house is really hard. It's got a huge yard. It's hard to take care of the yard.

And I'm not going to I'm not going to sit there and just watch it because I've spent too much of time and energy to watch it just become a dump.

I don't know. We'll see. I'll tell you who's going to listen to this podcast, whether he likes it or not.

And that's Jim. He's here this one. And that's, you know, a lot of the people people. I've got a neighbor down the street.

I sold his mom's house. You know, the dowlings, they need to listen to this so they can plan. What do they want to do?

My next group are the Bartaneans. There's a lot of people who need to listen to this.

@1:38:15 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Can you think of a time that there was something that would work for a short snippet?

@1:38:28 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

I'll listen to it when you put it together again. Maybe where you can buy a house with it. That would be, I think, a lot of people aren't aware of that.

Maybe that one. Or where he's saying that all of the senior lenders within his office have. That's what they do.

And he and where he said, when I turn 62, this is what I'm going to do. I mean, I don't know how you could utilize that where they understand that he's saying that all the lenders in his office.

because they do this because it makes sense. Well, he said 11 trillion dollars in equity. I thought that was like we could bank right off that.

How many people a day did he say?

@1:39:13 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

1,062.

@1:39:15 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah, so that might be another one right there. 10,062 every day and could qualify for this loan. So there's like three or four right there off the top of my head.

@1:39:31 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Yeah. So should it kept recording?

@1:39:33 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yes, you could. I know he did, but he's right. It's very. I think because we do real estate, some of this we can grasp faster.

But I'm even going to have to sit back and what was that last thing that he was talking about?

Oh, the interest accumulating value on your line of credit. Wow. You know, so it. Yeah. And your chat, AI had really good questions.

@1:40:06 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

A lot of them he answered before we asked them.

@1:40:09 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

So then we had, but I think everything just flowed.

@1:40:12 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I was impressed. I think it went well. Yeah, he was really good.

@1:40:17 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

We had some really good, I just kills me that more people are not listening to this podcast because there's a lot of really good information on here.

There really is. Yeah. What was it on Spotify to advertise it?

@1:40:33 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

It was really funky and.

@1:40:37 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Expense.

@1:40:39 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

I think you had to spend minimum 250 and they just suggested 500, but they were also doing like you should do.

Clips, right? They were saying, yeah, we are doing clips.

@1:41:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Plug them in where?

@1:41:02 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Well, so instead of making something from scratch, they said, oh, 30 seconds, that's great. Okay, well, instead of making a 30 second answer.

@1:41:16 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Oh, yeah, no. Do it. Do our, I like our reels. I like, I don't know what else to call them right now, but they get attention.

They really get attention. It's sad to say, but that's the extent of the American focus. Focus on anything longer than 30 seconds.

Sorry, sit your.

@1:41:39 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Are you heading out?

@1:41:42 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Okay.

@1:41:45 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Come back Sunday, Monday.

@1:41:47 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

But I am available. I can help you with whatever you need. I can, you know, you're going to write an offer.

@1:41:56 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Let me know.

@1:42:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

That would be. Really nice. That happens what you're going to do because what you're going to do to begin with is stay put until I get over to the exp and then we'll move you over.

But if you write a contract, you're going to stay put until that contract closes because you don't want to lose, you know, I don't, you wouldn't lose.

I don't think you would lose the deal. There's I don't know how they would pay you, but you're going to stay put to take the maximum benefit of getting paid on that contract.

Okay. So anyway, and that's not a big deal. We'll just deal with it.

@1:42:48 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

No, I just figured I couldn't even ask you guys that.

@1:42:51 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Yeah. And that way I can get my feet wet and start getting everything. One of the things I want from Jason is to find out if they have any.

the trainings on podcasts. So listen to that and see what they recommend on podcasts. So I'm really yeah I'm happy we were able to get it done sooner.

I can I can I hate asking Jason for the RV thing. I imagine we could call an RV place and get somebody.

Do you know anybody who owns an RV? Oh partial ownership that would be interesting that would definitely be interesting.

No one responded. You know we've had that woman who wanted to be on our podcast who has a podcast.

It had something to do with selling property. I don't remember what it was, but she's from back east. And I tried to reach out to her once.

I still have somewhere in here, I have her information I could find her.

@1:44:12 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

You know, we could do a short one.

@1:44:16 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

My daughter tried to call while we were on the, and I'm sure she's not gonna answer my call now, but I'll ask her if she found out anything and see if we can do something on that.

@1:44:32 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

So... I have a couple of people who have done these things.

@1:44:41 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You mean that live at home you're talking about? You can't get to see them.

@1:44:46 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Next door neighbor, they built an edition, gave the house to their kids.

@1:44:52 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

It'd be perfect to talk. They're willing to do it.

@1:44:55 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

This is why they have a teenage daughter now.

@1:45:00 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

You know what, Dennis, get them because then you solidify your relationship with that family. That just puts you that much closer into what if they ever have any real estate needs.

And that's a really good idea. Somebody can throw a Re-Ease. Put it in the elevator. That's the choose. Do one or do the other.

But Rotary might be the more beneficial of the, I don't know, at some point, maybe they'll sell or are they much, much older.

@1:45:37 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

They're doing the elevator to age and place. So they're the real, the more, but circumstances change.

@1:45:46 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Either one. I don't care. You know, they will have additional real estate needs at some point in time. And you're solidifying that with people you know in your community by interviewing them.

down. And you know, then they'll talk to the neighbors, hey, I worked with Dennis on the podcast that he has on downside.

And so it spreads. And so, all righty.

@1:46:14 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

Good trip.

@1:46:16 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

Thank you. I'm available if you need me. I really appreciate all that you do. I do do a lot.

So, and I'll plan on being at our meeting on Wednesday. Probably talked to Craig on Thursday. I'm not gonna, I may like that Wednesday night or something come in and pack up a bunch of stuff.

I won't do it when, you know, I'll tell him I won't do it when people are in the office.

But he's probably gonna get mad anyway. So that's okay. You know, well, you can just come back and do it to me.

Now, I bet you he'll ask it. I think he might. I did after I left when he, you know, when I had been his assistant after I left and Kathy Steiner got hurt.

I did come back and I helped with the garage sale that they had put on to help. I don't know if you, you probably never didn't even notice that but I kid you not.

I've never seen more junk in my life. People had donated from, there was, there was a car for sale.

There was a manufactured home that in a garage sale. There was, there were things. It was such a huge undertaking and I did come back and volunteer for that.

So, raise money for her. But that would, that it would have to be something like that for me. I'm not going to, it was interesting because he said today when he was fetching about Jason and that he would leave, he said, you can become the manager and I'm like, they wouldn't hire me, Craig, I'm too old.

And he's like, oh, that's not true. And I'm like, no, it's very true. John O's God has an age thing.

And they have since Howard got involved, Howard Chung. And Howard Chung is who's probably providing the money for Jason.

So I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I find it very interesting. And I like Jason and Joe a lot.

I really do. And Jason has. He had the tech skills and the ability to do marketing that nobody else was doing.

And that's how I credit him for the Moderna group and what they've done. I don't really know how Joe is a good guy.

That's probably it. But the business, I think the business since comes from Jason. And he has. So I don't know if Howard gave him the money or not.

It's none of my business.

@1:49:00 - Dennis Day (John L Scott Real Estate)

there at the right. He had a good time.

@1:49:02 - Judy Gratton (Fathom)

All of it was all about really going or just getting started. And he knows social, he knows technology, he knows social media, he knows how to use that stuff.

And what Craig should have done was really incorporate him into the office instead of he put him upstairs for one thing out of the way.

He doesn't like the competition for being the center of attention. He just doesn't and he lost Jason and Joe over it, I think.

So I don't know, I don't think anybody had. So anyway, all right. Thank you very much. Take care. Bye-bye.