How not to advertise reverse mortgages
IF YOU DISLIKE reverse mortgages, odds are you have been misinformed. And ads like the one pictured aren’t helping.
What a reverse mortgage is
The widely misunderstood and unjustly maligned reverse mortgage is no more nor less than a deferred payment program. You make your monthly payments in one lump when you sell, or, upon your passing, when your heirs sell or refinance. Chances are you’ll have more than enough equity to cover the lump, and you or your heirs get to keep the surplus, which is likely to be considerable. In the extremely unlikely event your home’s equity won’t cover the lump sum, that’s the lender’s problem, not yours.
I switched to a reverse mortgage on my last Utah home. It was like giving myself a tax-free raise in the amount of what had been my monthly payment. When I sold the home three years later, I made out so well that I obtained a reverse mortgage to purchase my current home in Oregon. (For information, I commend you to my loan officer and subsequent friend Dan Mabey of BOE Mortgage. He is licensed in all 50 states. Email him by clicking here.)
Anyhoo, on to the ad. Egad. The ad.
There’s the photo. Smart advertisers feature people the target market can identify with. Picturing silly old farts does not a good start make. I suppose you could argue that I am, indeed, a silly old fart. Fine. I still don’t care to identify as one.
There’s the copy. It fails to say what reverse mortgages are, what they do, or how they work. It fails to dispel misinformation. It lists benefits so vague as to promote, not allay, reader suspicions. It is devoid of content that would motivate anyone to say, “Maybe I should look into this.” Quite the opposite: the copy is all but repellent.
Oh, and reverse type cuts readership—significantly. So does setting copy in all-caps. Fewer readers mean fewer buyers.
Someone paid good money to create and place this ad. My mind’s ear imagines a defender saying, “But it’s creative!”
Er, no. It isn’t.
What a reverse mortgage is
The widely misunderstood and unjustly maligned reverse mortgage is no more nor less than a deferred payment program. You make your monthly payments in one lump when you sell, or, upon your passing, when your heirs sell or refinance. Chances are you’ll have more than enough equity to cover the lump, and you or your heirs get to keep the surplus, which is likely to be considerable. In the extremely unlikely event your home’s equity won’t cover the lump sum, that’s the lender’s problem, not yours.
I switched to a reverse mortgage on my last Utah home. It was like giving myself a tax-free raise in the amount of what had been my monthly payment. When I sold the home three years later, I made out so well that I obtained a reverse mortgage to purchase my current home in Oregon. (For information, I commend you to my loan officer and subsequent friend Dan Mabey of BOE Mortgage. He is licensed in all 50 states. Email him by clicking here.)
Anyhoo, on to the ad. Egad. The ad.
There’s the photo. Smart advertisers feature people the target market can identify with. Picturing silly old farts does not a good start make. I suppose you could argue that I am, indeed, a silly old fart. Fine. I still don’t care to identify as one.
There’s the copy. It fails to say what reverse mortgages are, what they do, or how they work. It fails to dispel misinformation. It lists benefits so vague as to promote, not allay, reader suspicions. It is devoid of content that would motivate anyone to say, “Maybe I should look into this.” Quite the opposite: the copy is all but repellent.
Oh, and reverse type cuts readership—significantly. So does setting copy in all-caps. Fewer readers mean fewer buyers.
Someone paid good money to create and place this ad. My mind’s ear imagines a defender saying, “But it’s creative!”
Er, no. It isn’t.
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