May/June 2023 RMM

Those We Help Angler Catches Dream Homes with Reverse Mortgages By Darryl Hicks CHARLIE CASHIO, 75, loves to fish, and the home he bought in Covington, LA, with a reverse mortgage allows him to enjoy life out on the water. Charlie taught cabinetmaking and carpentry for 25 years at a junior college that offered classes in different trades. He once was married and had two kids but later got divorced. When he retired, he moved for a time to the small fishing village of Cocodrie, one of the southernmost parts of Louisiana in bayou country. He built his home there from scratch. “Cocodrie is one of the ideal saltwater fishing spots in the world, especially for redfish,” Charlie says. Unfortunately, Cocodrie gets hit by storms quite often, and over time, they caused substantial damage to Charlie’s home. In 2014, he got a reverse mortgage from the Bank of New Orleans that paid off his existing mortgage and provided enough funds to make substantial repairs to the Cocodrie home. A few years later, Charlie developed a heart condition. He had open-heart surgery and had a pacemaker installed. “The doctors told me that I needed to move closer to a hospital because the closest one to Cocodrie was 90 minutes away,” he says. Charlie sold his Cocodrie house and moved a few hours north to be closer to family and medical professionals who could take care of him. “I never would have been able to sell my home in Cocodrie had I not been able to get the reverse mortgage to make the needed repairs,” he says. “It wasn’t marketable until I was able to fix it up.” Fast-forward to 2019. While walking through the town of Covington, a suburb of greater New Orleans, Charlie spotted his dream home. He walked up to the house, knocked on the door and started a conversation with the owners. Although the owners weren’t planning to sell, he offered them a price they couldn’t refuse. “The home is located on the shores of Lake Ramsey,” Charlie says. “It was perfect.” He met with reverse mortgage loan officer Alison Calamia, CRMP, of America’s Mortgage Resource, who arranged a reverse mortgage to purchase the new property outright without having to incur a new mortgage payment. Over time, as home values increased and interest rates decreased, Charlie ended up refinancing into a new reverse mortgage in 2021 to pull out additional equity that he used to establish a line of credit to live on. He also used some of the proceeds to build a boathouse to store his fishing boat. “Lake Ramsey is a freshwater lake, so it’s a great place for bass, blue gill, perch and catfish,” he says. “You can catch a nice five-pound bass in the lake. I go out on the lake when the weather is perfect. That’s the nice thing about being retired—you can pick your day. “I can’t thank Alison enough for what she has done for me and for the reverse mortgage, which is designed for the elderly, like me,” he adds. REVERSE MORTGAGE / MAY–JUNE 2023 33

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