BRISTOL, Tenn. - Marketed through television advertisements featuring senior celebrities like Pat Boone, Robert Wagner and James Garner, reverse mortgages are becoming more and more popular across the nation.

But it is difficult to find local people who have chosen a reverse mortgage as an answer to their financial needs because their sense of pride keeps them from speaking publicly about it.

“They’re still very private,” said Joan Dawson, a reverse mortgage specialist with Wells Fargo’s Johnson City, Tenn., branch. “They feel they weren’t able to make ends meet with the funds they had.”

Such mortgages are looked down upon by people like retired Bristol Tennessee resident Robert Latham, who doesn’t think the financial arrangement is all it claims to be.

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Seems one London area driver is a little slow catching on to Ontario’s tough new law against excessive speeding.

Fresh from getting back his seized vehicle after being charged with racing last week, the Putnam man was charged again yesterday after a rental vehicle was clocked going 153 kilometres an hour on Highway 401, near Highway 73, in a 100 km/h zone.

He told police, ” ‘I was only going three kilometres over the limit,’ ” one officer said.

Added Western Region OPP Sgt. Dave Rektor: “He obviously didn’t learn anything from his first experience.”

He’s not alone.

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It’s a tempting proposition: after years of writing cheques to the bank to pay off your mortgage, the bank will write a nice big cheque for you.

That’s the allure of reverse mortgages, which allow anybody 60 or older to borrow money against the value already built up in their home. With the number of 60-year-olds in Canada expected to double in the next 25 years, demand for the product is expected to grow.

Seeing that as an opportunity, a new provider of reverse mortgages has arrived in Canada, providing some competition to the Vancouver-based Canadian Home Income Plan, which has become almost synonymous with the product over the past 20 years.

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150K have refinanced loans under program, but fewer than 2,000 truly needed the help

Last August, President Bush promised to help homeowners who had fallen behind on their mortgage payments refinance with stable government-insured loans. This month, officials asserted that more than 150,000 people had benefited.

But federal statistics show that fewer than 2,000 homeowners at risk of foreclosure have been helped by the program, which is run by the Federal Housing Administration. Most people who have refinanced are homeowners who have made their mortgage payments on time, not the borrowers in crisis who were the targets of the president’s plan.

Housing officials, who initially expected 60,000 or more delinquent borrowers to benefit, say they greatly overestimated the demand.

But they say the program has helped people who were anticipating difficulties in paying their mortgages. Such homeowners were able to refinance before they fell behind, officials say.

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Last winter was the meanest season the Florida property insurance industry has ever faced. Gov. Charlie Crist asked three prominent lawyers to look into a class-action suit against the industry; a select committee of the Florida Senate spent two days slow-roasting executives from Nationwide, Allstate, Florida Farm Bureau and Hartford; and Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty began trying to shut Allstate down.

The allegations against the industry include collusion, price gouging, conspiracy and breaking state law.

But the Florida Legislature could turn all that anger and mistrust into some meaningful reforms, right? Turns out, property owners statewide are worse off than last year by many measures.

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Let’s catch up on a few things, like whether the meltdown in home values will affect holders of FHA-backed reverse mortgages, specifically the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage or HECM.

The answer is a big “no.”

In fact, as The Wall Street Journal pointed out in November, the reverse mortgage market is booming even as many other conventional mortgages and home equity loans have gone sour because people owe more than their home is worth. That can’t happen or won’t matter with HECMs, which come with a Federal Housing Administration guarantee that protects the lender and the homeowner from falling property values. That’s one reason why 90 percent of reverse mortgages are HECMs.

Here’s Mark Fuchs, a consultant with Hicksville’s Senior Funding Group, reverse mortgage specialists: “That’s the absolute beauty of a reverse mortgage. … If the loan balance exceeds the value of the property by any means … the homeowner is fully protected by the insurance policy that was paid for in the closing costs. … If you choose a lifetime monthly payment, you will still receive a monthly check for life, even after the loan balance exceeds the property value.”

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Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) of the House Financial Services Committee has proposed H.R. 5830, which would use the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to refinance at-risk mortgages at a lower interest rate in return for a cash fee. Under the legislation, lenders that chose to take part in the voluntary program would agree to receive 85 percent of the current assessed value of the house, while the borrower would receive a refinanced loan equal to 90 percent of that new assessed value. Refinanced loans would be 100 percent guaranteed by the FHA, and the new lender would have no further credit exposure if the borrower subsequently defaulted. If the homeowner subsequently walked away from the new loan, and if the FHA lacked the resources to back the loan, then the taxpayers would cover any losses.

H.R. 5830 is a revised version of an earlier proposal by both Chairman Frank and Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) of the Senate Banking Committee. While it is an improvement in some ways over the original plan, it still has many problems that make it the wrong way to deal with housing finance problems.

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Q: I received notice that my home insurance company will not renew our coverage when it is due in May, because of “loss severity” in February of 2007. A pipe burst in our bathroom, flooded a number of rooms and a crawl space. After a year we settled with the insurance company for about $40,000.

Suffice it to say that the action taken by the insurance company demonstrates its primary interest is to maximize profits and minimize risks.

We have carried insurance for 40 years, and this is our first claim.

I have complained to the state Department of Banking and Insurance. Our insurance agent is trying to find us replacement coverage, but the indications are the premiums will likely double. Can you help?

- J.M., West Cape May

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Q: My husband and I purchased our home two years ago. We have received numerous solicitiations promising to lower our interest rates, get extra money out of our home’s equity and lower our monthly payments. Does it makes sense to refinance in the current market?

A: Whether or not it makes sense to refinance depends on the interest rate now. Bankrate.com has a nice tool on their Web site that lets you calculate whether or not it’s in your best interest to refinance. Right now, 30-year fixed rate loans are hovering around six percent. That means if your loan is higher than six and a half percent, you may want to shop around.

That said, according to the FTC many of the solicitations are deceptive.

Some are made to look like they are from your own mortgage company that has decided to lower your rate, when they are really from other lenders wanting you to refinance with them. Many don’t disclose the true terms of the deal as the law requires, so you should always follow up with questions. Be wary of mail that touts a low “fixed” rate but doesn’t mention how long it will be fixed (it can be an introductory period as short as 30 days).

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You know what they say-look after the pennies, and the dollars will look after themselves. So it stands to reason that unscrupulous agents and officials involved with various real estate transactions are doing quite nicely pocketing extra money from real estate overcharges. Money that is rightfully yours.

There is little doubt that a real estate transaction is a complicated process, and to the average Joe it can be overwhelming. Not so, however, for the various officials and agents we hire to steer us through the process. They do this every day of the week, vs. a handful of times in a lifetime for us. As a result, it’s not hard to pull the wool over our eyes.

And it may not even be all that much. A hundred bucks, maybe-or even less. As part of a transaction that encompasses a myriad of calculations and stipulations, and reflects sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in overall value, you could be forgiven for (a not noticing a discrepancy, or b) clueing in to the possibility but ‘just letting it go.’ Maybe it’s $10, maybe $50 or even $100. Given the overwhelming documentation you have to wade through, and the overall price tag, $100 may seem like nothing.

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