In this weekend’s Your Money column, I look at what the decision by Bank of America and Wells Fargo to leave the reverse mortgage business will mean for the product and its future. (I actually think both will be back to originating these mortgages within a decade, but that’s another column.)

While I didn’t write much in the column about how people are using reverse mortgage proceeds these days, the sad fact is that plenty of people are using them to pay off back taxes, retire an original mortgage that they are late in making payments on or spending money on cars and vacations. Probably not the best use of the funds, but who am I to judge?

So how are you (or your parents) using the money you got from a reverse mortgage? And are you keeping the possibility of using a reverse mortgage in the back of your mind as a last-resort financial planning tool?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=50ee5f2f0c4ddaa73c83baf5866840fc