Mortgage

Recent coverage of the life settlements market by the New York Times appears to have ignited a small media frenzy. Several pieces from sources such as the Motley Fool and the Boston Globe seem to fall into one of two camps with respect to life settlements: The industry has massive potential and will serve as the new engine of growth for Wall Street in the absense of the mortgage backed security market. The budding industry is a ghoulish creation that will ultimately run afoul of regulators and...

Inflation can be a positive for the owner of a fixed mortgage since the real value of future mortgage payments decreases. Inflation is terrible for the receiver of fixed payments since the real value of future receipts is eroded by inflation. As Brett Arends of the Wall Street Journal suggests in a recent column, owners of Treasurys and other fixed income investments (bonds) should be acutely aware of the risks that exist in the current environment. One scenario suggests that owners of 10 year...

Reverse mortgages and annuities share some key similarities: Both financial vehicles have the potential to provide stable sources of income to retirees. Reverse mortgages and annuities both suffer from relentlessley negative coverage in popular financial media. As a result, reverse mortgages and annuities are largely misunderstood. Objective information and commentary are hard to come by. Even public officials who have responsibility for issues related to reverse mortgages struggle with the...

The shares of Genworth Financial were under pressure after a Citigroup analyst downgraded Genworth to sell from hold. Genworth shares dropped 5.4% on Friday and are still down 47% over the past 12 months. The Citigroup analyst, Colin Devine, believes that Genworth's business strategy is fundamentally flawed: “Things will likely get worse before they get better,” Colin Devine, an analyst with Citigroup, said yesterday in a research note. “We believe management continues to...

There is a good article in the Motley Fool that discusses using a reverse mortgage to generate retirement income . A home or principal residence is often one of the larger assets on a retirees' balance sheet. A reverse mortgage enables one to create a stream of income from what is otherwise an illiquid asset . "a reverse mortgage is one option to consider if you need to generate more income in retirement. Combined with managing your investments to maximize income, a reverse mortgage may give...