CRMP: Across the Kitchen Table you find there is real meaning, that to do well you have to do good,” Downey says. “By doing good and getting involved, you also meet a lot of people, a lot of really good people who are similarly motivated. Friendships form from that. It all gets back to doing the right thing for each client every time. In hindsight, some of the best deals we’ve done were deals we didn’t do.” Looking back on his career in reverse mortgages, Downey recognizes those people for whom reverse mortgages were and weren’t a solution. Twice, he has thwarted the fraudulent designs of drug-addicted children trying to gain control of their parents’ assets. In a situation with a happy ending, a reverse mortgage helped the wife of a divorcing couple buy complete ownership of their home, while the husband used a separate reverse mortgage to buy a condo for himself. Reverse mortgages truly are, as the financial planner once said to Downey, a Swiss Army knife—a message reverse mortgage professionals have a responsibility to understand and share. “There’s so much versatility if you take the time to learn what it’s about,” he says. “It has limited capabilities, but it has versatile capabilities. The question is, ‘How does it fit into a given situation?’ My recommendation is not that you should or should not do a reverse mortgage. Our recommendation is that you should understand it—and understand that if you own a home and have equity in your home, you have choices available to you. “Whether or not you use that choice, that’s up to you. But you shouldn’t just proceed in ignorance nor should your financial adviser not address that topic with you and make you aware of what your possibil- ities are,” adds Downey, whose son, Christopher, is Downey’s partner and a member of the NRMLA Board of Directors. “It gets back down to education. We’re educators.” REVERSE MORTGAGE / MARCH–APRIL 2023 17
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ1MzY1