Reverse Mortgage Eligibility Calculator

Five requirements determine whether you can get a HECM at all. You (or the youngest co-borrower, or an eligible non-borrowing spouse) must be at least 62 years old — there's no maximum age, and older borrowers generally qualify for a larger share of their home's value, not a smaller one. The home must be your principal residence, meaning you live there the majority of the year rather than treating it as a second home or rental. You need enough equity that reverse mortgage proceeds could pay off any existing mortgage balance at closing; you don't need to own the home outright, but you can't be deeply underwater either. You must pass a lender's financial assessment of your income, credit history, and capacity to keep paying property taxes and insurance. And the property itself has to fall into an eligible category, covered in more detail below.

None of these five requirements involve a minimum credit score threshold or a debt-to-income ceiling in the way a conventional forward mortgage does — which is exactly why reverse mortgages are positioned as accessible to retirees on fixed incomes who might not qualify for a traditional home equity loan.

Age does double duty in a reverse mortgage: it's a hard eligibility gate at 62, and above that threshold it directly increases how much you can borrow. This isn't a lender preference — it comes from HUD's actuarial Principal Limit Factor tables, which assume an older borrower's loan will statistically remain outstanding for fewer years, so a larger percentage of the home's value can be made available today without exceeding the non-recourse insurance fund's risk tolerance. Practically, this means a 70-year-old and an 85-year-old applying against the identical home value and rate will receive meaningfully different offers, with the older applicant typically qualifying for a larger amount.

This is worth internalizing early, because it runs counter to how most other loan products work: with a forward mortgage, a lender's main concern is your ability to repay over decades, so age rarely helps you qualify for more. With a HECM, the opposite dynamic applies — age is a positive input into the very formula that determines your available funds, not a risk factor lenders discount against.

Financial assessment was added to the HECM program after HUD found that a meaningful share of early defaults traced back to borrowers who received their reverse mortgage proceeds but then failed to keep up with ongoing property taxes and homeowners insurance — obligations that don't go away just because the mortgage itself has no monthly payment. Lenders now review your income sources, credit history, and any history of late tax or insurance payments before approval, and may require a Life Expectancy Set-Aside — funds reserved from your proceeds specifically to cover future tax and insurance bills — if your financial history raises concerns.

This is the single most common reason a borrower who clears the age, occupancy, and equity requirements is still denied or asked to set aside funds: not credit score, but a demonstrated ability to sustain the ongoing carrying costs of homeownership for the rest of the loan's life.

Single-family homes are the most straightforward case. Two-to-four-unit properties qualify if the borrower occupies one unit as their primary residence. HUD-approved condominiums qualify, though the specific condo project must appear on HUD's approved list or pass a spot approval. Certain manufactured homes qualify if they meet HUD's structural and foundation standards. Most co-ops do not qualify for a HECM, since HECM rules require the borrower to hold direct title to real property rather than shares in a cooperative corporation — a distinction that trips up co-op owners in dense urban markets more than any other eligibility rule.

If your home falls into a gray area — a non-HUD-approved condo, a manufactured home of uncertain vintage, or a mixed-use property with a rented storefront below your residence — the honest answer is that eligibility gets determined case by case during underwriting, not by a self-service checklist. Ask a HUD-approved counselor or a lender directly rather than assuming either way based on general rules like the ones above.

Running the numbers here isn't the same thing as a lender's pre-qualification, and it's worth understanding the difference before you treat either one as final. A pre-qualification from an actual lender pulls your credit history, verifies your income documentation, and applies HUD's current Principal Limit Factor tables precisely — it's an informed estimate backed by underwriting, not a guarantee, but it's far more precise than any self-service tool. This calculator, by contrast, projects how a starting balance you enter would grow over time; it doesn't determine your principal limit for you, since that depends on the federal PLF tables and your specific rate and appraisal, both of which only a lender can confirm. Use it after a lender has told you what you might qualify for, to see how that starting number plays out over a 10, 15, or 20-year horizon.

The gap between a rough online estimate and a formal pre-qualification matters most for borrowers close to a threshold — someone right at the edge of the financial assessment's comfort zone, for instance, benefits far more from an actual lender conversation than from any calculator, since the assessment involves judgment calls a formula can't replicate.

Consider a 68-year-old retiree with a $380,000 home, $2,400/month in Social Security and pension income, and roughly $6,800/year in combined property tax and homeowners insurance. A lender running the financial assessment checks whether that $6,800 annual carrying cost fits comfortably within the borrower's income and any residual funds after other debts — in this case, it does, with room to spare, so the file passes without a Life Expectancy Set-Aside. Change one variable — say, two missed property tax payments in the last three years — and the same borrower with the same income might be approved only with a set-aside carved out of their proceeds specifically to guarantee those bills get paid going forward.

The number that actually moves is rarely the home value or the draw amount; it's almost always the ratio between fixed housing costs and verified income, plus payment history. That's why two borrowers who look identical on paper (same age, same home value) can get different outcomes from the same lender.

A handful of situations end an application regardless of age or equity: being under 62 (no exceptions), the home not being your principal residence, insufficient equity to pay off an existing mortgage at closing, ineligible property types like most co-ops, and — after the financial assessment — a documented pattern of tax or insurance delinquency severe enough that even a Life Expectancy Set-Aside wouldn't reasonably cover the risk. Outside of these, most retirees who own their home and live in it are eligible for something, even if the financial assessment shapes exactly how the proceeds are structured.

The calculator above projects how a starting balance compounds against your home's equity using standard reverse-mortgage negative-amortization math — the same mechanics detailed on our reverse mortgage amortization calculator page. For the authoritative federal eligibility rules, including the financial assessment and Life Expectancy Set-Aside provisions, see HUD's HECM program page and the CFPB's reverse mortgage consumer guidance.