 Aging and the Income Value of Housing WealthSteven Venti and David Wise () No 3547, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc Abstract: The potential of reverse annuity mortgages to increase the current income of the elderly is analyzed. We conclude that most low-income elderly also have little housing equity, although this is not always the case. In general, a reverse annuity mortgage would substantially affect the income only of the single elderly who are very old -- whose life expectancy is short. On the other hand, if the transfer were in the form of a lump sum amount -- rather than an annuity -- the payment would increase the liquid wealth of most elderly families by a large fraction. Thus legislation that would facilitate the market for reverse mortgages could improve substantially the financial status of a small proportion of the elderly. But the specter of a large number of poor widows with vast amounts of "locked-in" housing equity does not reflect the reality. Most low-income elderly have relatively little housing wealth. Date: 1990-12 Published as Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 44, pp. 371-397, 1991. Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3547 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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