American Advisors Group (AAG)

The big thing though is on the appraisal on the house. I pretty much know the market value already but the rep had set up for an appraiser to come out. My son wanted to be there when that happens so if the guy has any questions, it’s easier for him to answer for me on my house. And I wouldn’t be comfortable anyway. But we went round and round, because my son works and he was to request time off. There was one reason after another why the appraiser couldn’t come. The dates didn’t work out. We called about five times but they didn't return my calls. Finally, the apparaiser's wife called me and said, “Okay, are we still on for Friday?” And that was Thursday. I said, “No. I’ve been trying to call you, you’re not returning our calls.” And she said, “Well, I didn’t get any message."

I complained to my loan officer and he said he'd talk to the appraiser. He was upset to what they did. He got this second guy right away, who called me Monday, last week. That was another week we had to wait. So, June 1st, they have agreed that my son will be available. He’s gonna take off half a day, and the appraiser is gonna be there. We’ll see how that works out.

Another upsetting thing is it was $600. My loan officer said that they’re totally separate. It was ridiculous, to come and check out the house for 30 minutes. My son was tremendously upset, not at just the first appraiser, but the second appraiser too, because he had put him off too. I asked the second person if I had to pay him again. He said no, that American Advisors Group would. I thought that was extremely overpriced.

So I called our advisor and told him about it. He said that he was sorry and that he couldn’t control what the office did. He had them send me another one, but I haven’t got the other one. Other than that, I've been to the counseling session and it was worth every penny of my $125. The fellow that did it for us was very slow and deliberate, answered every question that we had, and made sure that in every step of the line, we understood what he was saying. So after the call, both my wife and I felt like we had a much better understanding on what a reverse mortgage is as well as the strengths or weaknesses of it, and it was an excellent review.

We’ve also learned some information in this process that was new to us. I researched reverse mortgages, even before I made the call to AAG, to review them and try to understand as much as I could about them. I still have more questions to ask, but that won't happen until I'm given an actual contract at some point down the road and I will be reviewing that. But I would make sure that people understood what this is and see if it's right for you. I would also tell people that some of the horror stories that they've heard about it, at least so far as I've learned, are just bad horror stories.

I'm waiting for AAG to set an appointment for house inspection. They have the pictures when I first had the first reverse mortgage, but it has been four years so they can't use those pictures. There’s not much change, but the house has a new roof. I understand they need to see the house, but I'm very concerned about COVID. So, I need to talk to whoever the inspector will be to see how we can manage that, whether we can do it through Zoom or how we can do it. I can take his or her camera myself. They can be here outside. And I take the pictures on their camera and give them the camera. Or I could do FaceTime with my own phone.

I've had no one come in the house except once this summer to have the carpets cleaned. And that's how we all are. Everybody is so concerned about having anybody come in to our bubbles. I've talked to AAG. I've expressed that to Joe. He said, “Yes. We've noted that.” And he said, “Now, sometimes what they're doing is just in the driveway.” They're doing them outside like that or on the porches instead of coming into the house. I thought, “Let's figure out something about this inspection of the house.” That's where I am. But so far, I'm satisfied.

We weren't even going to file the application for the mortgage until January 21st. I remember the counselor telling us that we couldn't initiate anything farther out than 60 days before his 62nd birthday. I was going to call and tell Terry all of these this morning and remind her. Because we had talked about it. I told her that we were going to be careful in the timing of all of these so that we don't make any mistakes. We want to make sure that we can close on the loan between March 21st and 31st so that we don't have an April house payment. If I have concerns, I call. And if I can’t reach Terry right then, she calls right back. Or I can call the counselor at the company that provided the required counseling. Supposedly, we can get any additional questions that we have answered for the next six months. My experience this far has been very good. So, I would recommend AAG.

I told her that I got to go to the doctor and that she should send me an email with her number on it, then I'll pick up the conversation when I’m free to talk. She followed up and gave us 7 to 10 days to discuss it. So, between those days, ‘cause we had quite a few things going on, she gave a time for me and my wife to walk through the advantages and disadvantages of doing it and whether it was a good fit for us. I didn't get the impression she was trying to meet a quota. I felt like that she was adequately explaining the product so that meant something as well.

We're not completely through with the process. We paid cash for our house. Since we moved in, we’ve only been in here for months, we spent $50,000, so we got our fingers crossed that we will get an appraiser that is knowledgeable and understanding of the market that Bonnie and myself are in. The only thing that would blow it up is if a person would under appraise the house. I'm holding documentation that the house should appraise at around 400, 402, but appraising is subjective and everybody doesn't say everything the same way. If it did not come in around that figure, give or take a few 1,000, then that would make us rethink if we wanted to do this or not ‘cause we might lock in more money into the house. If we do that, then we would have too much value locked in for what could be loaned on the house. In other words, we wouldn’t wanna tap our money.

About two years ago, I had a gentleman come up on the house that we lived in for 28 years and he tried to appraise it for $375,000. I told him he was crazy. I knew that he was faulty. I was trying to refinance to do another project on that home because it was a river home and it was capital intensive. Finally, I sold that for $790,000. If I would’ve bought in on that guy's appraisal that didn't know what he was doing, I would have potentially screwed myself out of $400,000. I told Bonnie I'm not gonna get negative on it because I can't control the appraiser. So, let's just see how everything shakes out and then we'll take it from there. I wouldn't consider it if I had children. But since we don't have, it gives us a little different angle on what we need.