Time Magazine Goes Low With Its Reporting About Reverse Mortgages

The short opening statement illustrates unabashed ignorance as it contains FOUR major mistakes that seek to directly impugn the integrity of the program. The second paragraph makes an astounding claim that has no factual foundation and is an outright fabrication.

I find it absolutely astounding that the editors allowed Stephen Gandel, a reporter (maybe some one needs to look of the definition of "reporter and "reporting") to publish this piece of worthless detritus.

The list of trumpery includes: Homes are sold to the banks (untrue); borrowers live in homes mortgage free (untrue); borrowers get the value of home minus closing costs (untrue); banks have the right to sell the home (untrue); banks and brokers abuse the program (untrue).  A solid rebuttal was given by Peter Bell, NRMLA's president.

By all cannons of common sense and worthy reporting, Time Magazine has reached a nadir that has lowered the bar for accurate and incisive reporting.

I am not suggesting that the program should not be criticized. Those who have read my blog know that I tell it like it is. I have complimented and castigated the program, various politicians, regulators (national and state) and reverse mortgage lenders.

I am troubled by the continuous and incessant cavalcade of reporting on this topic that lacks merit and smacks of sophistry.

I think that it is important to reprise some of the posts that have taken dead aim at such reporting.  You may want to read Reverse MortgagesWrogly Attacked Again-The Age of Instant Communication makes "Attacking" too Easy"   or

 Here We Go Again, Responding to Inaccurate HECM Reverse Mortgage Information Could Become A Full Time Job or

The CPA Journal Article On Reverse Mortgages Just Does Not Add Up, or

 review Disparaging The Reverse Mortgage Program is Not the Answer or

Forbes Flubs Reverse Mortgage Article or

Madoffing the Truth- How A "Respectful" Media Falsifies HECM Reverse Mortgage Information or

The Hecm Reverse Mortgage: Consumer Reports Fails its Own Critique or

Reverse Mortgages: Consumer Reports Gets it Wrong Again and Again and Again or

New York Times' Questions Provide Wrong Answers or

Reverse Mortgages Are Good-Some Companies Are Bad- New York Times Confuses The Two or

Media Misrepresents Reverse Mortgages or

The Today Sow Slanders Reverse Mortgage Program and Industry- One Expert Fight Backs

The HECM reverse mortgage program, especially today, offers hope to many of our elders. The tragedy of  these reports is that they provide wrong information that could stop those from considering the one program that could change their financial situation from a negative to a positive.

Comments

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[suprayouth]

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[Mortgage Brokers Perth]

It is a great post which illustrates some wrongs that need to be corrected so that next time this is ever mentioned again, the content will only contain the correct version of the said story.

[ugg ultra tall]

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[Michael Manfredi]

He recants on July 9th in a tiny italicized sentence at the bottom of the article saying:

"The original version of this story relied on a study of reverse mortgage fees that was three years old. Since then, new federal guidelines have brought down the expense of reverse mortgages."

To me, this proves it was a smear. I guess he still feels that brokers "push" seniors around during the reverse mortgage process.

[Beth Paterson]

Great review on how incorrect the statements were in this piece and how damaging articles like this can be. This is definitely not reporting according to what I learned while studying journalism. Thanks for publishing this!