Those We Help Health Issues Lead Texas Man to Reverse Mortgage By Darryl Hicks WHEN HE’S NOT selling houses in the San Antonio metro area, Gary Beck, 69, loves traveling and fishing. Every year, he flies to northern Saskatchewan or drives six hours to the southernmost tip of Texas to fish in the Gulf of Mexico. His love of traveling started while he was in college when he had the opportunity to visit Swaziland (now the Kingdom of Eswatini) in southern Africa to help teach the local farmers how to grow potatoes. “I grew up on a corn and soybean farm in Illinois, so it was hilarious that I was helping farmers cultivate potatoes,” Gary says. “After I completed that project, I scraped together $300 and was able to continue flying around the world. I visited Madagascar, Mauritius, Australia and New Zealand.” Gary keeps in touch with everyone he visits, and many of them have traveled from their countries to his home in Boerne, TX, a suburb of San Antonio. “We may not have seen each other for 30 years—and during that time people got married, had kids and got divorced—but it only felt like it was last week,” he adds. When he’s not traveling or fishing, Gary is a natural salesman. He sold recreational vehicles for 15 years before becoming a Realtor. Beginning in 2017, Gary started having health issues and was in and out of the hospital for the next four years. “I always had this goal to pay off my mortgage by the time I reached 65,” says Gary. “Unfortunately, I was unable to do that because of all the time I spent recuperating.” In 2022, he contacted a friend in the mortgage business, who referred him to Melinda Hipp, a San Antonio-based reverse mortgage specialist with Mutual of Omaha Mortgage. “I had heard about reverse mortgages, but Melinda answered all of my questions. She and her assistant, Jesse, took care of me and walked me through the entire process from start to finish,” Gary adds. Gary built his home 20 years earlier in the beautiful hill country outside San Antonio, so the last thing he wanted to do was leave. The home appraised at $590,000, which allowed Gary to pay off his mortgage and a loan he had on his truck. “I am feeling much better, and I am able to work, but the pressure to make loan payments on my home and my truck is gone,” he says. The remaining loan proceeds from his reverse mortgage were set up in a Life Expectancy Set Aside that will be used to pay his property taxes and homeowners insurance policy for the next 22 years. “I may not live that long,” Gary says, “but it gives me added comfort that my taxes and my insurance will be paid so that I can live in my home for as long as I want.” Gary lives in a fairly wealthy neighborhood, and he admits that most of his friends aren’t thinking about a reverse mortgage as part of their overall retirement plan. “They may not need the money, but my response to that is, ‘You may be OK, but chances are you have an aunt who owns a home but has a lot less in retirement savings and is having trouble paying for things and could potentially benefit from looking into a reverse mortgage.’ In my own case, a reverse mortgage helped me out a lot,” he says. Despite his health issues, Gary hopes to visit New Zealand one last time. “I lost one of my legs, and so I am wearing a prosthesis. It’s a 23-hour ride from Houston to Auckland, so I haven’t figured out yet whether that will work. I may have to sell some more real estate so that I can buy a business class ticket and recline most of the way.” 32 REVERSE MORTGAGE / SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2023
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