The growing popularity of reverse mortgage is expanding past the United States. Other countries are discovering the benefits reverse mortgages have on the aging population. Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore and New Zealand are all offering reverse mortgages. India is also looking to offer these in the near future.
Australia: reverse mortgage have been offered in Australia since the 1990’s, lack of demand caused them to be removed from the market but they have now been re-launched.
United Kingdom: they are known as Lifetime Mortgage. They began offering this mortgage in 2005.
Canada: has a reverse mortgage called the Canadian Home Income Plan (CHIP) and it was introduced in the mid 1980’s.
Singapore: decided to offer a reverse mortgage product in expectation of the age shift of the next 6 to 24 years. In 2030 one out of every 5 residents will be a senior citizen.
India: introduced the reverse mortgage concept in its 2007-2008 budgets.
New Zealand: doubled their reverse mortgage market in 2006.
