Pay Off Your Mortgage with a Reverse Mortgage

At closing, part of your home equity is used to pay off your current mortgage balance in full, which eliminates the required monthly mortgage payment going forward. You keep title to the home and remain responsible for property taxes, homeowners insurance, and maintenance. The key requirement is having enough equity to retire the existing balance entirely — you may qualify depending on age, equity, property type, and lender guidelines.

Yes. A traditional refinance still requires monthly payments — just potentially lower ones. A reverse mortgage eliminates the required monthly mortgage payment entirely while you remain in the home. The trade-off is that the loan balance grows instead of shrinking over time.

Yes — a reverse mortgage can generally be repaid at any time, in part or in full, through voluntary payments, a refinance, or selling the home. Nothing requires you to wait until the loan comes due. Confirm the specific program’s prepayment terms before committing, and weigh whether making regular payments defeats the cash-flow purpose that led you to a reverse mortgage in the first place.

The loan comes due when you sell the home, stop living in it as your primary residence, or pass away. It is most often repaid from sale proceeds, though you or your heirs can instead pay it off with other funds or a refinance and keep the home. Because an FHA-insured HECM is non-recourse, the amount owed cannot exceed the home’s value at the time of repayment. On an FHA-insured HECM the property charges stay with the homeowner (property taxes, hazard insurance, flood insurance where it applies, and any HOA, condominium or ground-rent charges), and leaving them unpaid is its own reason the loan can be called due and payable, though the servicer sends a 30-day notice first and there may be options to resolve it before it comes to that.

The balance grows over time because interest accrues on the amount used. The loan is typically repaid when you sell, move out permanently, or pass away. Because an FHA-insured HECM is non-recourse, neither you nor your heirs owe more than the home is worth at the time of repayment.

Yes. You keep title to the home. A reverse mortgage is a loan secured by the property, not a sale. You remain the owner as long as you live in the home and meet the loan obligations (taxes, insurance, maintenance).

Yes. Heirs can pay off the reverse mortgage balance and keep the home, or the home can be sold to settle the loan. Many California homeowners still have meaningful equity remaining after decades of appreciation, so heirs often inherit a net positive position.

If you sell or move out permanently, the reverse mortgage becomes due. The loan is repaid from the sale proceeds. If you are considering moving within a few years, a reverse mortgage may not be the best fit — we review this honestly in the first conversation.