Planning for long-term care and aging is crucial, especially through tools like reverse mortgages and tailored aging plans. Families often face significant challenges when caring for elderly parents, making proactive planning essential to prevent crises and preserve family relationships. By effectively using home equity and other financial resources, you can fund long-term care and support aging in place.
Harlan Accola is a reverse mortgage expert with over 20 years of experience helping seniors and their families navigate the complexities of long-term care planning. As a nationwide mortgage professional at Fairway, he has worked with over 1,000 clients, using his deep understanding of reverse mortgages to provide affordable solutions for aging in place. On this episode, Harlan discusses the benefits of reverse mortgages as a financial tool to help seniors age in place and fund long-term care, drawing from his personal experiences with his own parents and other clients. Stay tuned!
Quotes:
- “Money isn’t everything, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen. We just need it.”
- “There’s nothing more important to me and our team, who work with this throughout the nation, than long-term care.”
- “When families choose to wait until they are in a crisis, emotions are high, time is limited, and big decisions need to be made quickly.”
Takeaways:
- Consider using a reverse mortgage as a tool to help fund long-term care and enable aging in place, rather than relying solely on retirement savings or other financial resources.
- Engage with a geriatric care management service before a crisis situation arises, to develop a customized aging plan for your family.
- Educate yourself and your family on the true costs of long-term care and the limitations of Medicare coverage to avoid being blindsided when the time comes.
- Encourage your financial advisor to expand their knowledge on aging-related expenses and solutions like reverse mortgages, as they may not be as informed as specialized experts.
- Plan ahead for long-term care needs, even if you don’t currently have an immediate need, to ensure you have the right financial and care solutions in place before a crisis occurs.
Conclusion:
Reverse mortgages can be a valuable tool for funding long-term care and helping seniors age in place, especially when integrated into a thorough financial and care plan. Proactive planning is also crucial, as these options work best when set up before a crisis occurs. Given that traditional financial advisors may not fully address the complexities of aging, seeking specialized expertise in this area is essential as well for effective planning and support.
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