It doesn’t always come to mind to people how retirement should be your dream vacation. Often times, retirement is easily associated with spending and paying, which should not be the case. This kind of mentality is the reason why we need proper financial education in order to have access and success to a great retirement. One often-overlooked part that is present within the retirement age is reverse mortgage, Bob Hansen of Rever Mortgage shares what you need to know about that. If you are a person in debt and is about to enter the age of 62, then this one is for you. Learn some of the retirement goals you should be planning for as the Thrive experts cover taxes and a lot more.

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Listen to the podcast here:

[smart_track_player url=\”https://soundcloud.com/livewiththrive/thrive-wpht-11-26\” title=\”Retirement Goals For 2017 To 2018 with Bob Hansen \” ]

Retirement Goals For 2017 To 2018 with Bob Hansen

It\’s nice to have Bob Hansen joining us. He specializes in reverse mortgages. Bob, I give you an opportunity to just enlighten the audience just a little bit about your background.

I\’ve been in mortgage for about 30 years now. Over the past five years, I\’ve devoted my life to specializing in reverse mortgages. The reason being is that I found that there\’s a real desire on people\’s parts to understand what is possibly one of the most misunderstood programs out there. For the past five years, I\’ve been digging deep into learning all about it so that I can help teach others all about how to take advantage of and use the reverse mortgage.

We welcome you into the conversation. We’ll spend some time with Bob in B-block and start to educate people. One of the mottos of this show is education and Bob fits right in with all of us here as his motto is education. First, Bret, I bring you into the conversation. We\’re going to get into the five decisions made in your 50s that may haunt you when you get to your 80s.

It\’s crazy how technology\’s evolved over the years where it\’s now all about, “Go buy this, go buy that. I’ve got to have this, I’ve got to have that.” We see it the same thing when people deal with their retirement. It\’s like, “I just hit 60. I\’m going to go save as much money as I can between now and retirement.” That\’s why we love to sit down with people before they\’re getting ready to hit that retirement age to put all those different plans together. We start talking about plans for your investments, your taxes, healthcare legacy, that plan for income distribution, where we remind people that it takes time. We talked about planning and preparation of everything that goes into that.

 

Retirement should be like that as well. It\’s almost thinking about retirement as being like that dream vacation, not that spendathon that we enter during Black Friday. It\’s reminding people and spending the time. That\’s the key to appreciate your retirement. It\’s exactly what we\’ve been helping people do for myself. I\’m coming up on my 20th year and David and Karen enter their 30th year. We understand, just like the holidays, that retirement matters with the people that you spend it with. That\’s what we do sitting down with people. We call it selective amnesia, dealing with the present.

Let\’s put it in that time and that preparation. It\’s why we love to have partners like Bob joining us where it\’s all about just educating and being advocates. People never plan to fail, they fail to plan. The phones have been heating up from the show. Fortunately, we\’ve got eight appointment slots. Feel free to call our number at 1-800-516-5861 or you can call us at ThriveFinancialServices.com. There are lots of people that are answering the phone calls. We’ve got eight appointment slots, just talking about starting to put those puzzle pieces together and planning for retirement.

One of the areas that we\’ll talk about when we get deeper into the show is retirement goals for the end of the year. We\’ll never cover the entire topic in one setting, but it\’s that time of the year to start to understand that and to start to itemize that, figure that out, and start to create bullet points in those areas that you want to reference. When we opened up the show, I talked about those five decisions that you\’re going to make in your 50s and then those decisions are going to linger. You\’re going to live with those decisions and accept responsibility for those decisions. They may haunt you when you get into your 80s. One of those is taking on more debt. Since you mentioned a time when people spend a lot of money, taking on debt is one of those decisions that should be a number one.

It\’s one of the reasons we have Bob here as well. It was a perfect segue. We get that a lot after the holidays. We call it buyer\’s remorse where they\’re like, “I can\’t believe how much I actually spent,” when they get that credit card bill. We’ll talk about the five financial decisions and we\’re going to start off with it. After Bob finishes, we\’re going to finish up with a topic that you made in your 50s that may haunt you in your 80s. Taking on more debt, being in that first decision, we need to be thoughtful, especially college. When we are in our 50s, that\’s when our kids are entering college and we see especially with tuition costs that are out there, it\’s completely outpaced inflation.

You go look at Cal Berkeley back in 2007, 2008, before the financial crisis, we were out at almost $8,300 a year in State. That jumped to over those six, seven years afterward, up over $13,000. That’s over 10% a year. That was what inflation rates like back in the early Reagan years. Parents are faced with those tough decisions. When we talk about the likelihood of success or not having success in retirement, when we sit down with people and they don\’t have that, it\’s a big deal. It\’s almost like having a gigantic pension that you have in there a month in, month out. Sometimes, we don\’t know what circumstances look like. Some people are concerned about legacy later in life.

Some people are like, “I want to help my kids out earlier on.” We see a lot of people as they enter retirement, it\’s important to sit in with them when they are in their 50s because maybe they\’ve accumulated credit card debt, student loan debt, maybe they\’ve refinanced their mortgage. A lot of times we\’re introducing them to partners. We\’re going to have some other partners on the show but we\’re excited to have Bob here in the studio. We’re talking about it with people of what our options are. It\’s our job from an education advocacy standpoint to simply educate people as to what all the options are. If we are one of those people that do have debt in retirement, that\’s okay. There are ways to get out of it and that\’s what this show is all about. “Do I want to make those college loan payments or do I want to get out of debt?” We’re excited to get Bob here in the next block and talk about some strategies in helping people get out debt.

[bctt tweet=\”Flourish, prosper, and succeed.\” username=\”\”]

Since I\’m in my 50s and I have three children in college and one more to go and I don\’t want to make decisions in my 50s that perhaps will haunt me in the 80s, I\’ll be listening as well. Let\’s introduce our audience to Bob Hansen. I\’m glad to say that he\’s part of the education first mantra in terms of how we like to educate the audience and certainly what Thrive Financial Services has been all about education. Bob, it’s nice to have you. I want to get right into it so we can deliver to the audience some good information on reverse mortgages. Let\’s start with the very basic question. For my benefit and for the benefit of all, what exactly is a reverse mortgage? I asked you the question because I always think it\’s confusing and misunderstood.

In order to understand what a reverse mortgage is, we first need to step back and take a look at what exactly is a traditional mortgage or mortgage that we\’re all familiar with. Years ago, you’ve got a 30-year fixed and you paid a mortgage for 30 years. Speaking of debt from earlier, one of the greatest debts you\’re going to take on is your house and your mortgage. With a traditional mortgage, what happens is you\’re going to borrow a certain amount of money. Let\’s use an example. If your house is worth $200,000 and you\’re going to borrow $100,000, you\’re going to spend the next 30 years of your life making payments on that money that you just borrowed. In order to service that debt, what you\’re going to do is you\’re going to take money from your savings account, from your checking account and from your paycheck. Every single month, you\’ve got to come up with a way to make your mortgage payment.

With a reverse mortgage, it\’s still a loan. One of the things that people don\’t understand is that a reverse mortgage is a loan against the house. Just like a traditional mortgage, there\’s an amount that you\’re borrowing. In our example before, a house is worth $200,000, you might be able to get a reverse mortgage for $100,000. The difference is now instead of making those payments out of your savings account, your checking account or out of your paycheck every week or every month, what you\’re going to do is you\’re going to give up just a little sliver of your equity every single month to service that debt. What that does is it frees up your cash accounts to have that liquid again. Instead of making a mortgage payment out of your pocket and out of your assets, you\’re using the equity. You\’re exchanging the equity in your house for the cash that you now have in your accounts.

It sounds easy enough. Where does the misunderstanding come from? Why is the topic so complex?

The topic is complex because of the history of the reverse mortgage. You\’ve got to go back a few years. Back in April of 2015, they made a lot of changes to the reverse mortgage. Prior to that, it was the Wild Wild West where people were allowed to do almost any type of lending that they wanted to do. Years ago, you didn\’t even need a mortgage license to be a mortgage broker. What happened was there was a lot of programs that came out and the reverse mortgage was one of them where it wasn\’t regulated and controlled. As a result of that, people got themselves into situations that they just couldn\’t get out of.

A lot of people have heard a story about how my grandma or my grandpa got a reverse mortgage and now they lost their house. That could have happened in the past but there are insurances and controls that had been put in place to protect that from happening. Years ago before the changes, in order to qualify for a reverse mortgage, you have to be 62 years of age or older. In the past, a husband and wife might be in a situation where they need to get some money out of their house and they can\’t use traditional means. What they did is they went and they obtained a reverse mortgage. Let\’s say the husband was over 62, let\’s say 65, and the wife was not of age, she was 58.

As we all know, women outlive men. In a scenario like that, what happened was the man qualified to get the mortgage but the wife did not. She was not allowed on the loan. A few years go by and the husband passes away. The wife is left with the home and she doesn\’t have any rights to it now because the husband got the reverse mortgage, it was just in his name. By the rules of the past, within one year you had to liquidate that house, something had to happen. Then grandma was sitting there in the house, grandpa was gone and she was stuck, “What am I going to do with this house? My husband\’s gone. I don\’t know what to do.” That is one of the stories that caused the reverse mortgage to get a bad rep.

 

I don\’t want our audience to cringe when they read the topic of reverse mortgage from your example. I feel that perhaps many people will because they don\’t understand. That\’s one of the motivating reasons for us to have you as part of the conversation with our audience. We want people to be educated and to understand exactly what you\’re talking about.

Cringe-worthy is exactly what the reverse mortgages of the past were. It was the Wild Wild West. Anything could happen back then. Back in April of 2015, they changed the rules about reverse mortgage lending. In the situation that I explained where you had a husband and wife, where the husband was of age and the wife was not, they did away with that. They now have what\’s known as the surviving spouse rights. In that scenario that I just portrayed, if you are 65 and of age and your wife is not of age or your spouse is not of age, the wife then is allowed to carry on the reverse mortgage until she is no longer around either. If your husband passes away, you can stay in the house for as long as you want to and you still have all the rights and abilities to stay in there and they cannot kick you out.

We\’re talking with Bob Hansen from ReverMortgage.com. That example is just one of the changes that\’s a pretty good consistent change that is now relevant.

That\’s just one of the changes that are relevant now. There have been a couple of pretty extreme situations of changes that have been made because it was cringe-worthy before. Another scenario before the changes of 2015 was a husband and wife would be able to get the mortgage. Let\’s say they were both of age at this time. The house is worth $200,000 and they borrow $100,000. They live for fifteen years, twenty years. They outlive the amount of money that they grew on their reverse mortgage. What happens now is their house is still worth maybe $200,000, but they owe $250,000.

What happened in the past was at that point in time, the estate that it was passed on to had to pay that differential. They had to cover that amount. It was passed on to the heirs. That was something that the children of these people would be upset about. What they did is it\’s now an FHA-Insured program and part of that FHA Insurance causes it to be what\’s known as a non-recourse loan. In the scenario of a non-recourse loan and the FHA Insurance, what happens now is if that house goes upside down where you end up owing more at the end than your house is worth, the insurance kicks in and make up that differential. Your estate or your heirs are not responsible for it.

Can you identify for me or for the audience, who should consider a reverse mortgage? Where does it start? I know you had referenced 62 to be a bullet point age, but what are some of that criteria? Who should consider it?

First off, you need to be 62 or older in order to qualify for the loan. Who should consider it? We were talking about debt earlier and how people that are taking on more and more debt. I would say if you\’re a person who is in retirement age now or about to enter it over 62 and you\’re buried in debt and you\’re in a situation where your income is now starting to go down and your expenses are still the same and you\’re struggling to make it, you don\’t need to. A reverse mortgage can come to the rescue in the sense that you can exchange that mortgage payment that you\’re now making for equity in your house. In fact, they\’ve changed the name of the reverse mortgage.

[bctt tweet=\”Retirement matters to the people that you spend it with.\” username=\”\”]

I still like to call them reverse mortgages because I don\’t want to escape the name, but it\’s now called a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage or HECM. What that means is you\’re taking the equity of your home and you\’re converting it into a mortgage, therefore using your equity to pay for your mortgage payments instead of it coming out of your savings and checking. If you\’re a homeowner 62 or over and you\’re strapped for cash and your debt is starting to get to you, before it gets too late, you need to check into a reverse mortgage and learn how you can possibly qualify to take enough money to pay off your existing mortgage and free yourself from having to make payments any longer of your principal and interest.

Bob Hansen joining our conversation on reverse mortgages. ReverMortgage.com is the website. The phone number is 610-247-1400. Bret now joins us. There\’s a lot under the category and under the topic of reverse mortgages. We just started and scratched the very top of the surface, but as time rolls forward and as we bring Bob into the program more, there\’s a lot to talk about.

Why we decided to partner up with Bob is he just has that same passion for being an advocate in education just like we promote here at Thrive. It was a natural fit for us. Bob went through the scenario of people that may have too much debt or maybe still have that mortgage balance. There are plenty of times too, where we\’re sitting in front of people. Our job is all about education and advocacy. Understanding all the tools that we have available, like arrows in the quiver that we all have at our disposal of how to navigate a successful retirement.

We sit down in front of people, weekly I would say, and I\’m talking about net worth $2 million, $3 million, $5 million where reverse mortgage makes sense for them as well. It\’s not necessarily for everybody, just like stocks, bonds, annuities aren’t right for everybody. It\’s our job to identify, be a good listener, and find out where all the different tools that we have out there and what makes sense. We\’re going to have Bob on more shows where we\’re going to dig deep into some of those other topics. He did a great job of going through some of those broad strokes and identifying an overview of the reverse mortgages. There\’s so much detail to go into it because a lot of people have those misperceptions that are out there.

Bob did a pretty good job of starting to clear that up and I thank you for coming into the studio.

One of the things I wanted to mention along the lines of what Bret was just bringing up with people with higher net worth, one of the things that I didn\’t hit on yet was the structure of a reverse mortgage. The way you get money now is in two forms. You can get a lump sum of cash, but you can also get a line of credit that\’s tied into it. Based on the value of your house and your age, you can qualify for a certain amount of money. In addition to that, you can get a line of credit that\’s going to grow at a rate that\’s much higher than current rates are out in the marketplace.

That\’s something that people with higher net worth are looking into these days as a form of hedging against different types of portfolios and some of the things that Bret talks to us about. That\’s where a reverse mortgage can come in handy for somebody that does have that higher net worth. It\’s not just a loan of last resort for people that are struggling. It\’s also a financial tool for people that are already doing well and want to do better and take advantage of leveraging that asset that\’s their home, which is probably the biggest asset that most people have right now.

Bret, when we started the program, I referenced to the top of the audience five decisions that you perhaps will make in your 50s that perhaps we\’ll come back and haunt you in your 80s. You talked about taking on more debt. Bob referenced and dealt with debt in his conversation. I want to get out of debt conversation and transfer now into taxes.

We\’re going to tackle here retirement goals. Things to get done before the end of the year. Sometimes we\’re meeting people like the week before they\’re getting ready to retire. We love it when we\’re meeting people in their middle to late 50s as well when they’re a couple of years away. There are a lot of times that we sit down with people and they\’ve done such a great job at saving in their 401(k) but they don\’t have a lot of diversification in their different tax buckets. They have 95% of their net worth and 401(k)s or four or three accounts. Thinking about how taxes work, we\’re in the second lowest tax rates in US history.

 

We go back to the ‘70s, the top tax bracket was in the ‘70s, early ‘80s that dropped down into the ‘50s. Today, we\’re going to stick to the actionable, not the political. We’ve got tax reform that\’s on the table. Right now the top tax rate is 39.6%, so always deferring taxes is a good thing because you need to remember you actually have a partner in your 401(k) IRA plans. His name\’s Uncle Sam or the IRS and we don\’t know what could happen to taxes in the future. We sit down and identify with people, especially in your 50s. You’re probably five or ten years out from retirement where we always promote about diversification between all our different buckets of money. Having money always in tax-deferred buckets isn\’t always the case. There\’s that misperception out there that I’m absolutely going to be in a lower tax bracket in retirement. A lot of times that\’s true, but that\’s not always. We meet fortunate people who have pensions and social securities. We are going to talk about required minimum distributions as well where deferring taxes isn\’t always a great thing, especially taking into the equation that government can always change what the tax rates are.

Bret, if I can transition, this is the one that I think most of us sometimes don\’t realize until we get a daily reminder that potentially it could occur. That\’s the possibility of getting sick unexpectedly and you\’re not prepared when that occurs.

We thought of this topic and we say thinking you\’ll never grow old, which we\’re going to talk on that one too, but this one is getting sick and that\’s such a big deal. The way to fill that hole is traditionally what we hear out there as long-term care insurance. We get people that get passive-aggressive in all over the place when we start talking about long-term care, but it\’s real. Statistics show that one in two people are going to need it in some form. For those of you that have a long-term care policy, that doesn’t mean cancel it. There are so many times we sit in front of people and it\’s a great foundational piece, where they\’ve had it for a long time or they\’re not looking like they do now.

The hard thing with long-term care insurance that we need to understand is it\’s for some people but not for everybody. We need to realize that every two to three years, typically we see premiums jump up 10% to 20%. The idea is if we\’re going to look at purchasing it, you want to do that in your 50s. When we get out into our 60s, 70s, 80s, it\’s way too late. It becomes that expensive at that point in time and nobody wants to buy it. They almost describe it as like a homeowner\’s insurance policy. “I\’ve never had a fire, I\’ve never had a hurricane, where I\’ve never used it. My fear is what happens if I die in my sleep where I\’ve just put all this money out for years and I have nothing to show for it.”

What\’s great about this industry because of the lack of favoritism of the long-term care solutions is it is still a problem. It\’s still out there. People may get cancer, heart attack, stroke, Alzheimer\’s and dementia kicking in, whatever it may be. There are now some hybrid products out there. You have annuity products and you have life insurance products out there, instead of having to purchase traditional long-term care insurance. This was a big deal because there are a lot of people now. I bet you one out every three to four people we sit down with are dealing with something like Type 2 Diabetes. They\’re cancer survivors.

[bctt tweet=\”Dealing with the present is a cure to selective amnesia. \” username=\”\”]

They\’ve had a stroke or whatever the case may be, where a lot of times it\’s going to rule them out for long-term care insurance and/or life insurance. There are the other products out there too. We talked about annuities, how they can give us a guaranteed income for the rest of our lives if a lot of them ended up having to go to a long-term care facility? Even at home, a lot of people are like, “I\’m not going to a facility. I want to be taken care of at home.” There are products and solutions out there where you can leverage your money.

Two more bullet points left on the list of five. One is that you\’ll always be able to manage your own money.

Between David, Karen and I with our years of experience, them coming up on their 30th and me in my 20th year, is we meet a lot of successful people that are managing their own money. What we find is as they start getting older, it\’s not fun for them anymore. Maybe in retirement, they\’re traveling the world and they\’re like, “I\’m not keeping an eye on things.” Here are some of the bigger ones, our brains change as well. Back in 2004, Stanford University studied aging and the brain. This topic, thinking you\’ll never grow old and always be able to manage your own money, what they found is that your cognition peaked at age 53. Statistics show that people are living longer and longer today and what they found is the decline in all but one area, included inductive reasoning, spatial orientation, numeric ability, verbal ability, verbal memory, and perceptional speed has already started declining at age 25. It\’s planning our finances.

Many times, we sit down in front of people who have done a phenomenal job at self-managing and sometimes they\’re just ready to throw in the towel where they\’re not remembering as much as they used to be or it\’s not as fun as much as it used to be. Let\’s get together and come up with a plan, especially in your 50s. If you\’re self-managing, you still can sit down with people and come up with those strategies as well. We have people that utilize this in every which way and they\’re used to the way things are with conventional wisdom or sometimes we’re able to introduce them to other concepts and strategies as well. Don\’t ignore the information that\’s out there.

One last bullet point in the list of five is thinking you are already old.

That’s not only thinking but also acting it. The brain is a crazy thing. What we feed it with is a lot of times what comes out. We see this a lot of times. We talked about crazy statistic during our workshops and the most updated actuarial tables. If we have a couple aged 65, there is a 50% chance that at least one\’s making it to the age of 95. It\’s a long time and there are a lot of people that we\’re meeting in their mid-50s, they may be late 50s, maybe a couple of years away from retirement and they\’re planning on simply that their money lasts them for ten to fifteen years. With Thrive acting as a fiduciary, everything we do must better be in your best interest.

Health does come into play when we\’re talking about planning for someone\’s finances. On the other side of it as well, CDC talks about just trying to stay in shape and we see a lot of people, especially in their 60s. We always have the mantra out there. You\’ve got to be healthy to be wealthy. It\’s trying to stay healthy. We have to realize that we are going to live long but if I am sick, it\’s putting that plan together. A lot of what we talk about is, and I alluded to that when we started the show, is we\’ve got to have that plan for healthcare. “Am I good? Am I sick? Am I healthy? What\’s that plan for my investments? If I have debt, does a reverse mortgage make sense? What are my other strategies for getting out of it? What\’s my plan for taxes? What\’s my plan for health care and long-term care and legacy?” We\’ve got a lot of workshops coming up here. We\’d love to sit down with you all.

It\’s a good transition, Bret, into that last part of what we talked about retirement goals for the end of the year. It’s that time of the year where people start thinking about it.

It\’s important to realize once we\’re over, and we\’re going to combine these first two subjects here a little bit talking about the 401(k), is once you\’ve achieved the age of 50, you can put as much money up to $18,000 into a 401(k). If you\’re over the age of 50, you have the ability to put up an additional $6,000. There are so many people that are doing a great job at savings but they stop at $18,000 where it\’s something called a catch-up contribution. Ideally, you want to try and put as much money away into this 401(k)s. That needs to happen by the end of the year. The important thing is, especially if you have that money taken out of your paycheck and maybe you\’re not working for one of the big guys were to Fidelity or Vanguard is making sure you\’re notifying your boss as soon as possible to make sure that those withdrawals are taken out. Whether you need to go online or notify your bosses or whoever\’s in charge of HR to get that money out of your account as well.

I want to just recap. When you say max out, that means what?

Whatever your maximum contribution, if you\’re younger than 50 years old, it\’s $18,000 but maxing out your 401(k) allows you to put up the $24,000 a year into that 401(k). If you have the ability to do so, you want to do so because ideally, you\’re in a lower tax bracket at retirement, not guaranteed. If we can put money away on a tax-deferred basis then that\’s typically a good thing.

 

Taking minimum distribution means what, Bret?

This is important. This is going to lead into our question of the week also, so I\’m going to cover this. You’ve got to make sure that we take our requirement of distributions. Once we\’ve achieved the age of 70 and a half, we\’re going to go through that a little bit deeper in just a moment. We need to start taking that money out this calendar year. If we don\’t do that there’s a 50% penalty that comes along with that as well. If that\’s something that has happened to you or you think that may be subject to you this year, it\’s something we help people get around in terms of what needs to be done to try and get that back. Keep in mind, there\’s one common retirement plan which doesn\’t have that requirement of distribution, that\’s Roth IRA, we don\’t need to take anything out of there. Typically 401(k)s, IRAs, 403(b)s, 457 plans, whatever the case may be, we need to make sure we\’re taking those out by the end of the year as well.

Do people know that? They should but they don\’t necessarily remember or what?

What happens is this is in the first quarter we\’re getting bombarded with all sorts of tax forms that go out there, so they\’re telling us how much we should be taken out of our IRAs, but sometimes life gets in the way. We\’re enjoying retirement a little bit too much so we forget to do that. That\’s something that we\’re doing always. We\’re looking at that calendar and seeing which one of our clients haven\’t taken that out because 50% is a hefty penalty which leads me into that last topic. Here is a big one. Is that saver\’s credit? This is one of the topics we talk about in our workshops where you may, not a tax write-off, but you may be able to get a tax credit up to 52% on your contributions.

If you have lower incomes and we talk about this when people are working part-time or consulting, especially right after retirement. If you\’ve got earnings of $31,000 or less as an individual or $62,000 as a married couple against simply by putting money away into a retirement plan, the government\’s going to give you up to $0.50 on the dollar. We’d love to sit down with you just going through some of the strategies you can do at the last minute where it can make dramatic impacts to your taxes.

I want to get into the question and then I want to get back to Bob and get some dialogue with him. Our question is a challenging one, what is in RMD and what does it have to do with my retirement? I think that\’s a good topic. I\’m not sure you\’re going to be able to cover it quickly, but it sounds detailed. What is it?

We\’ve been getting some phenomenal questions emailed into [email protected]. Please continue sending them over. This was a great question, RMD and I just spoke about it. It stands for Required Minimum Distribution. Once you\’ve achieved the age of 70 and a half, we need to start taking money out of all those tax-deferred plans. Roth IRAs are exempt. When we talk about 401(k), IRAs, 457, not Roth IRAs but those other ones, we need to start taking the money out. One exception to the rule. If I\’m working and we’ve got some clients that just love their job and they\’re 75 years old and they have $500,000 sitting in their 401(k), they\’re actually exempt. Just that plan, the money that\’s in that 401(k) for that employers. That’s one reason you don\’t have to take it out, but there are other vehicles you have to that\’s out there.

If you do not take them out again there’s a 50% penalty. If that\’s something that has happened to you, maybe it was last year and maybe you had a mistake between your accountant and your advisor. There are ways to get that back where we\’ve helped people. That\’s something we can chat about and when we sit down with you as well. What\’s the big deal is as you turn the age of 70 and a half, the government gives you a one-time chance and a lot of times we don\’t do it, but a one-time chance where you can defer taking your required minimum distribution that year. It’s like a four-month grace period. Let\’s say you\’ve turned 70 and a half right now, you can actually defer it all the way out till April 1st. What that means is you’ve got to take two requirements of distributions that year so it becomes a lot more painful. RMDs are something that we\’re passionate about.

[bctt tweet=\”People never plan to fail; they fail to plan.\” username=\”\”]

The decisions need to be made back to that teasing question about mistakes that you can make that will haunt you later. Bob Hansen, I want to come back to you as being a spectator and being a part of the show and introducing a conversation on reverse mortgages. I give you 45 to 60 seconds to put a recap with your conversation.

Thanks a lot, Krause. I\’m happy to have been here. My motto is education first. One of the things that I really took away from being here tonight is that there\’s so much information out there, it\’s just sometimes overwhelming. What Bret was talking about with all the numbers and the ages and the deadlines, you got to get out there and you\’ve got to meet with them and you\’ve got to learn everything you can about what you need to do to not make any mistakes. Education is what it\’s all about you. You need to learn about reverse mortgages and need to learn about everything that Bret talked about.

If you are interested in learning anything more about reverse mortgages, the first resource I would go to is my website to start off with, that\’s www.ReverMortgage.com. You can call me and talk to me directly at 610247-1400. I don\’t consider myself a salesman. I consider myself an educator. I think that\’s why Bret and I and the guys at Thrive and the whole organization, why we\’ve partnered together is because we both have the same outlook on things. We want people to learn, absorb and then make educated decisions so that they don\’t make the mistakes in their 50s that can haunt them later on in their lives.

Bret, you can recap.

I’m excited to have Bob here with us and digging a little bit deeper into the reverse mortgage topic as time goes on. There are a lot of misperceptions out there so just continue with that theme of education and advocacy. Talking about those year-end changes, we\’re sitting down with lots of people as well. We talked about RMDs and IRAs a lot here and 401(k)s, but in addition to that long-term capital gains and dividends. December is a great time to take those long-term capital gains. We talked about in previous shows, 0%, 15%, 20% of what we can be taxed. If we get an opportunity, let\’s do it. We\’d love to sit down with you and share all those creative strategies of putting the money in your pocket and not on Uncle Sam.

On behalf of Bret Elam, Bob Hansen, David Bezar and Karen Bezar and everybody, I\’m Joe Krause. See you next time.

Important Links:

• Bob Hansen
• ReverMortgage.com
• [email protected]

About Bob Hansen

I help Homeowners over 62 understand the many ways they can enhance their financial futures with a Reverse Mortgage. If you are over 62 you need to learn about the many ways you can use a Reverse Mortgage to enhance your financial future. Did you know you can by a home with a Reverse Mortgage. If you are an empty nester, or looking to downsize. You need to learn about how you may be able to buy a $350,000 home with only $200,000 in cash. Contact me to learn more about how to use a Reverse Mortgage for Purchase. [email protected] www.RevMortgageInfo.com