Tim Schlosser, 72, and his wife Kaye, 71, live in Hamilton, OH, near Cincinnati. They have been married for 53 years.
“Kaye and I dated in high school and we went to Otterbein College,” says Tim. “We got married during our sophomore year.”
Tim worked in real estate for 48 years, including 22 years as a sales manager at Huff Realty, a large real estate company owned by Berkshire Hathaway that serves Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and Southeastern Indiana. Kaye was a Kindergarten teacher for 32 years.
The couple raised three kids, all of whom followed their mother’s lead and went into education. One is an elementary school principal, another teaches 4th grade, and another daughter teaches high school English.
In 1981, the Schlossers bought a ranch-style home in nearby Harrison, OH, where they lived for the next 31 years. Over time, as the kids grew up and moved away to start their own families, the home became too big for just two people.
“When you live in a place for 31 years, things can start to go wrong,” says Tim, “and three acres is a lot of land to care for.”
Tim had heard about reverse mortgages dating back to the early 2000s when the real estate company he worked for owned a mortgage division that offered reverse mortgages.
While most reverse mortgages made today are for people who want to age in place in their existing homes, in 2008, Congress authorized the Federal Housing Administration to create a purchase option for its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program.
Under the HECM for Purchase program, the borrower takes funds from the sale of the previous home or from savings and combines those proceeds with funds from the reverse mortgage to purchase the new property outright, thus eliminating a monthly mortgage payment.
In the fall of 2022, Tim contacted Mike Bowers, a reverse mortgage specialist with Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, whom he met five years earlier, to discuss options. “I had a good understanding of reverse mortgages, but I wanted Kaye to hear about it, so Mike came out to our house and explained everything in great detail,” says Tim.
As with all reverse mortgage transactions, Tim and Kaye were counseled by an independent, HUD-approved housing counselor to ensure they fully understood how their reverse mortgage would work.
The old home sold for $480,000, while the asking price for the new home was $407,000. Using proceeds from the sale of their home, the Schlossers bought a condominium and are now enjoying their new home.
“We bought a condominium,” says Tim. “There are 12 individual units, four units to a building. Our unit is 1,800 square feet. It’s a new development in a fast-growing area down the road from where we lived.”
Tim and Kaye are now retired and enjoying life.
“I walk my dog every day and my wife plays pickleball,” says Tim. “We have a camper and like to go camping. We haven’t had five seconds of remorse moving to the new place. Mike is an incredible person and we greatly appreciate his guidance on getting the reverse mortgage.”