I got a call this week that made me very sad.

A woman came to my webinar — twice — back in 2024. She had the facts. But the people around her said reverse mortgages were “bad,” and their opinions carried more weight than what she’d actually learned. So she decided against it.

For two years, she tried to manage on her own. Costs went up. She drained her savings. She took out a home equity line. She leaned on credit cards.

Now she has too much debt. A reverse mortgage is no longer an option for her.

She has to sell her home — and may even have to leave the area, away from her family and friends.

This didn’t have to happen.

Here’s what a lot of people don’t know: reverse mortgages aren’t just for people who are desperate. Many financial planners now use them as a smart part of retirement planning — providing access to additional wealth without depleting savings or investments.

But wait too long, and you can lose that option completely. Here are the two things I see catch people off guard most often.

1. Too Much Debt Can Disqualify You

Reverse mortgages don’t require a minimum credit score. But lenders are still required to run a financial assessment — a look at your overall financial picture, including your existing debts, to confirm you’ll be able to keep up with property taxes, homeowners insurance, and basic upkeep going forward.

That assessment is exactly what caught up with the woman in this story. Every credit card balance and every draw against her HELOC, taken while trying to manage without the option she’d already ruled out, made her financial picture look shakier, not stronger. By the time she came back, the debt she’d taken on trying to hold things together was the very thing standing in her way.

The frustrating part: a reverse mortgage could have paid off her existing mortgage and started supplementing her income from day one — she never would have needed the HELOC, and never would have needed the credit cards that followed it. Instead, waiting meant drawing down her equity through the HELOC, taking on a new payment to service it, and then leaning on credit cards just to keep up with that payment. She wasn’t standing still for two years. She was going deeper into debt trying to manage debt — and that’s what ultimately closed the door.

2. Losing a Spouse’s Income Can Disqualify You

When a lender evaluates whether you can afford to keep up with a home long-term, they’re looking at household income and assets at the time you apply. For a married couple, that usually means two incomes, or at least two sources of financial support, factored into the picture.

If a couple waits, and one spouse later passes away, the survivor is often left applying alone, with a single income where the lender previously would have considered two. A financial picture that would have comfortably passed the assessment as a couple can look very different for one person on a fixed income.

This is one of the reasons I encourage couples to at least have the conversation early, even if they’re not ready to apply. Looking into your options while you both have income on the table keeps more doors open than waiting until only one of you is left to walk through them alone.

Sometimes the barrier isn’t missing information. It’s letting someone else’s opinion outweigh the facts you already have.

None of this means a reverse mortgage is the right choice for everyone, or that it needs to happen right away. It means the choice itself doesn’t stay open forever. Debt accumulates. Circumstances change. The option that’s available to you today isn’t guaranteed to still be there in two years.

Looking into it early costs nothing. Waiting can cost you options you don’t get back.

If you’re even a little curious, that’s reason enough to have a conversation now, while every option is still on the table.