Lets say you eventually want to retire, to settle down in some quiet little town and forget about everything (culture reference).
Anyway, as an option what about taking money out of savings and buying a multi-unit house for 100k or so (inflation adjusted) in a small town in the midwest and living in one unit while renting out the others? Would hiring a property management company to function as a landlord be necessary? I know tons of people have trouble with renters, so this may not be ideal.
Can you qualify for a reverse mortgage in a situation like that?
But it does seem if you could get a 2 unit house and both rent one out to a decent tenent while getting a reverse mortgage at the same time, that should help pay the bills in geriatric age. But then again how do you know if a person can function in the role of landlord into their 80s? Would handing things over to a property management company be best?
Really, you’d need more information and specifics. Conceptually there’s nothing wrong with the idea and I see no reason that you’d need a management company so long as you are smart enough to find a good contractor, handyman and lawyer that you can hire as needed.
Really it comes down to how much the property costs. If it’s set up legally as a multi-unit dwelling (remember, you can’t just rent rooms legally, they need to be zoned and inspected and fire rated). How much maintenance it’ll take to get it ready and how much it’ll take to keep it livable. How much rent you’re likely to be able to command in that market, small towns can be tricky for that if there’s a lot of cheap housing and few transient people. The reverse mortgage angle is tricky and there’s no reason that a income property would be specifically excluded, but the entire point of a reverse mortgage is to pull money out of a house you’ve owned for a long time. It you’re buying the house new there’s no chance that a reverse mortgage would have any value.
Additionally, you have to remember that lots of people and businesses do this already. Finding a property that’s undervalued enough to command enough rent to both pay down the mortgage and provide living expenses is going to be rare. In a small town that’s off the radar your odds improve, but don’t think that it’ll come easy.