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It’s Anchors Aweigh For Jack S.

"Bringing Everyone and Everything Together"

Jack is somebody who always knows where the sun is shining.

For years, he worked as a CPA and traveling auditor for Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored enterprise that provides a reliable source of mortgage financing and liquidity to millions of Americans. His work took him many places.

On one January business trip to California, he called his wife back in Washington D.C., where she said she had been digging out from a snowstorm. Rightly or wrongly, Jack replied that there wasn’t a snowflake in sight from where he was standing.

“By March, we had moved to California, and have been out here ever since,” Jack said.

But not just any part of California. They built their new home in Santa Barbara, otherwise known as the Gold Coast or American Riviera.

It wasn’t long before Jack joined the local sailing club, but the real anchor was his home where the transplanted Easterners raised their three boys.

Years later when Jack’s wife passed, he wanted to live closer to his now grown sons, who also called Southern California home.

He found a property in Oxnard, California, about 35 miles down the coast from Santa Barbara and the jumping off point for the Channel Islands, an eight-island archipelago. Here he could be close to both the sea and his sons.

There was just one small problem.

“The person who owned the property before me was an elderly lady, who apparently was very short,” Jack said. “So, everything was a foot too short for me. She was 5 feet I think, and I’m 6 feet.”

The house’s color also was an issue.

“It was pink, so I bought the house with the anticipation I would remodel it, using the funds from a reverse mortgage to allow me to get the house up to snuff.”

Having worked for Fannie Mae, Jack was familiar with what a reverse mortgage loan was, and, of course, as a CPA, he knew how he could use its tax-free cash and flexible cash-flow features to make it work for the next chapter of his life.

Jack’s house is no longer pink, and the kitchen counters and bathroom vanities are now just the right height. In addition to living closer to his three sons and six grandchildren, Jack can easily continue his seafaring ways, sailing out of Channel Islands Harbor.

Jack said obtaining a reverse mortgage helped bring everyone and everything together at a critical turning point in his life.

“It just turned out to be a perfect solution for my situation,” he said.

The sun is clearly shining on Jack. Like a gentle breeze at his back, a reverse mortgage has helped the skipper navigate just the kind of retirement he had always envisioned.

[Clients were paid for their time. Their statements are their own.]