Baseline
No voluntary payments; the loan balance accrues over time.
Presented byRob Ziebart, CMPS
For homeowners approaching or in retirement
Free retirement guide + bonus illustrated case study
Get the Free Guide: How the Money in Your Home Could Help Your Retirement Savings Last Longer
Retirement planning usually centers on investments, Social Security, taxes, and insurance. See why the home—and mortgage planning—belongs in that same conversation.
Inside: one 67-year-old homeowner, a modeled $220,000 purchase, and four separate paths showing what the financing decision could make possible now and later.
Send Me Both Free Resources2 free resourcesThe 37-page What If You Live? guide plus the 11-page Third Option illustrated case study.
Free retirement guide + bonus illustrated case study
What If You Live? + The Third Option Case Study
See why the home belongs in the same retirement-planning conversation as investments, Social Security, taxes, and insurance. Then see why money kept available at closing may be only the beginning of the comparison.
- Understand why living longer can make market, inflation, health, and care risks harder to absorb.
- Follow one 67-year-old buyer's modeled $220,000 purchase and the $73,116 kept available at closing.
- Compare later borrowing scenarios for retirement needs and aging in place—along with their costs and obligations.
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Educational illustration only. A HECM is a loan with interest, costs, eligibility requirements, and continuing homeowner obligations.
Inside What If You Live?
See the Retirement Risk That Grows With Time—and the Asset Often Left Outside the Plan.
The guide connects the big retirement question—how long your money may need to last—to the wealth already inside your home. Then it uses one homeowner's modeled figures to compare four different planning paths in plain English.
37 guide pages4 modeled planning paths1 homeowner illustration
Also included: The Third Option Case Study, an 11-page companion showing the starting figures, four modeled paths, and year-by-year tables.
Email Me Both Free Resources
The missing conversation
The home is often kept in a separate planning box.
Many plans coordinate investments, Social Security, taxes, insurance, and spending while leaving the home—often the household's largest asset—in a separate mental box.
The report asks whether that asset should remain untouched or be planned alongside everything else. Sometimes the right answer is to do nothing. The point is to compare the choices before life makes the decision for you.
One homeowner. Four possible futures.
The money kept available at closing was the starting point—not the whole story.
The modeled purchase left $73,116 available at closing instead of tying the full $220,000 up in the home. Four separate paths then show what the structure could make possible later—and what it could cost.
Voluntary payments
A modeled $1,000 monthly payment builds future borrowing capacity.
Later loan advances
Ten modeled $25,000 annual loan advances beginning at age 80.
Aging-in-place stress test
Three modeled $120,000 annual loan advances beginning at age 87.
Borrowing capacity is not savings-account cash
The real story is what the financing structure could make possible later.
With an adjustable-rate HECM, unused availability can increase over time under the loan terms. The growth calculation uses the same rate components applied to the loan balance—but it increases future borrowing capacity, not cash in a savings account, investment earnings, or home-price appreciation.
Under current federal tax treatment, HECM advances are generally loan proceeds rather than taxable income. They are still borrowed funds, increase the loan balance, and should be reviewed with a qualified tax professional.
Available credit is not the same as money already spent.
- The homeowner chooses whether and when to draw available funds.
- Voluntary payments may reduce the balance and restore available credit under the loan terms.
- Interest and applicable charges accrue to the loan balance.
- No monthly principal-and-interest payment is required.
- Taxes, insurance, maintenance, and primary-residence rules still apply.
Worth exploring when
- You expect to remain in the next home for several years.
- Keeping more retirement savings available matters more than paying all cash.
- You want to compare several sources of retirement liquidity.
Pause and compare when
- You may move again soon.
- Upfront costs outweigh the likely planning benefit.
- Property charges or home upkeep may be difficult to sustain.
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