8 Ways to Reach Boomers & Their Parents

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reverse mortgage newsYou know how to reach reverse mortgage prospects. Between your own marketing expertise and all the tools, training and technology available from ReverseFocus.com, you’ve got lead generation down to a science.

But with the Boomers now a “sandwich generation” — as well as those on the oldest end of the spectrum potential reverse mortgage candidates themselves — it pays to appeal to both Boomers and their parents for maximum impact.

Here are eight creative ways to reach both audiences:

  • Develop webinars to attract internet-savvy prospects, and consider catchy titles such as “Heart to Heart for Your Smart Future”.
  • Contact medical doctors, chiropractors, integrative medicine clinics and other health service providers popular among Boomers who work with a senior population, and ask about holding talks or workshops there. Emphasize the win-win: you’ll bring potential new business to their door.
  • Offer midday or after work talks at YMCAs, churches and synagogues, Lion’s Clubs, Elks Lodges, and similar membership organizations. Large corporations may even be willing to hire you to give workshops (e.g., a lunchtime talk series) as long as it is informative and not sales oriented.
  • Discover where Boomer women in your region convene: women’s business networking groups, college alumni events, wellness conferences, etc., and offer a talk on the benefits of creating solvency for older women, particularly if they live alone or believe they may in the future (single, widowed, divorced, etc).
  • Research city guides of community services and target these service centers as possible speaking venues.
  • Blog! The simpler and shorter the article, the more likely it will be read — and shared via social media. Make a list of topics or questions Boomers and their parents might most want to know more about (not only reverse mortgage information, but anything relevant to aging in place, their home, health, finances, etc.)
  • Arrange a roundtable conversation about hot topics, such as “The challenges of aging” or “How to navigate and work through conflict,” that will appeal to both Boomers and their aging parents.
  • Contact estate planning attorneys, mediators, therapists, libraries and other sources that accept for-profit organizations as speakers (emphasize your senior service focus).

Retirement Views May Expand Reverse Market

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Changes In Retirement And The Reverse Mortgage Market

In recent years American’s views on retirement have changed substantially. Many are working longer not from choice but need. Dan Gorin, supervisory policy analyst for the Federal Reserve said “The definition of retirement has changed dramatically. In the past when we asked people surveyed, those who were planning to work forever had answers that were twofold; some said ‘I like to work,’ and some said, ‘I need the money.’ More recently, more people saying they’re never going to retire because they need to work.” What is ironic is that only 8% of those aged 62 or older have even considered a reverse mortgage and 2% actually took one according to a nationwide survey conducted last December by the RAND American Life Panel.

Reverse Mortgage Market News

So what are the other 92% doing? It may boil down to denial and resistance in seeking assistance. Gorin says fewer than half, yes half of Americans actually seek advice on housing and retirement finances. This is tragic as the the home represents the majority for even moderately affluent individuals pre-retirement wealth.  Many Pre-retirees are aware of the benefits of non-taxable home sales gains, mortgage interest tax deductions and energy tax credits but oblivious of the assets full potential when employed in a comprehensive retirement plan. Not surprising since most senior homeowners have no experience in converting debt into cash flow. This chart from the American Housing Survey in 2007 shows the sleeping giant of home equity with 64% having no mortgage whatsoever and 35% holding some combination of a mortgage, second or line of credit. Today’s retirees overlook their home being more concerned with equity security than income security. Equity security is hard-wired into the American psyche. Work, save, payoff your mortgage and retire with no mortgage payments as you transition into the fixed income years of your retirement. Income security however, lends itself more to truly solving the most vexing issue in retirement…

Find reverse mortgage news, tools and training at ReverseFocus.com !

The X Factor: Denial

Constructively Exposing Retirement Denial

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Denial In Reverse Mortgage Borrowers

Denial. It’s one of our biggest challenges when working with prospective reverse mortgage borrowers. While denial tends to manifest itself more prominently in those who have little financial assets, like the needs-based-borrower, it also applies to more affluent borrowers. Denial creates an alternate reality for needs-based homeowners  with statements like “we’ll be just fine” or “we will find a way to increase our income when we retire”. For more affluent potential borrowers it may appear in the statements “our portfolio will keep growing giving us enough money to live on the rest of our lives.” Denial serves a dual purpose: to avoid discomfort and accountability. No one likes to admit that their previous spending and savings habits have led to a retirement crisis. Savers don’t like to accept the fact their investments may never grow enough to sustain the withdrawals they need each year to maintain their standard of living in retirement. Denial has exacts its price: stress, fear and lack. It stems not so much from logical or  willful choices but from unconscious beliefs and habit patterns. What are our choices

Difficult Decisions

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Reverse Mortgage And Senior Support Services

HECMs can be financial lifesavers for seniors who want to age in place. But what if an individual or couple’s ability to age in place changes over time? Children or other significant relatives who live at a distance would be wise to plan ahead in order to help the elders in question remain independent for as long as practical.

This article on long-distance caregiving explains what family members need to know. Reverse mortgage professionals may want to keep such information handy to share with the children of clients and prospects who are participating in their parents’ HECM process, as well as to use as a handout when addressing groups about how a HECM can help seniors age in place.

Some of the key issues include:

  1. Medication management
  2. Food shopping and meal preparation
  3. Transportation
  4. Household safety and household management

One of the benefits of aging in place is mobility: being able to frequent the places one is accustomed to, such as bookstores, cafés, theatres, etc., whether a senior gets there by car, bus, bicycle or on foot. An increasing number of towns across America offer affordable senior transport such as Paratransit, a flexible shared transportation option that typically uses minibuses to take seniors and people with disabilities where they need to go. There are also transport services specifically for medical appointments.

The greater problem may be not the availability of such services, but persuading older adults — especially men — to use it.

Driving can be a thorny issue for families, as handing over the car keys signals “the end of independence” to many elders. Men who have managed businesses as well as been heads of household may insist they’re fine, even as slowed reaction times and visual or hearing impairments make continuing to drive dangerous — not necessarily because the senior isn’t being cautious, but because they may not be able to respond quickly enough to other drivers’ errors, or to an unexpected event such as a child darting into the street.

This page offers a wealth of information on aging and driving. The gentleman who curated the content reports that when he surrendered his car keys — even though he chose to do so due to failing eyesight — it was “a devastating experience. To live outside the security of a private bubble with a steering wheel put me in alien territory.”

Contrast this perspective with that of an 86-year-old woman who recently moved into a spacious senior apartment that she adores: “Mondays through Fridays, hourly from 9 am to 4 pm I can ride the Macon County Transit with a $25 monthly pass, permitting me to shop for groceries or whatever I need along a fixed route that includes Kmart, Walmart, library and also trips along the way by request. This solves the problem of being without a car. Perhaps the reality is that even should I feel it is something I could afford, at my age — with slowed reactions, hearing deficiencies and readily distracted — I would simply be a road hazard and danger to others.”

Winston Churchill said, “We are shaping the world faster than we can change ourselves, and we are applying to the present the habits of the past.” The more we can flow with the rapidly evolving options for seniors that both a reverse mortgage and senior support services can provide, the greater the opportunity today’s and tomorrow’s elders will enjoy to age in place with purpose, participation and joy.