> At a time when seniors are sitting on a mountain of housing wealth and have anxiety about their finances, this should be a well-used program. Instead, despite rising senior population, participation decreased between 2011 and 2018, from 73,112 to 33,000 mortgages.
Does not seem like a popular part of peoples’ retirement plans. Even downsizing a house does not seem like it would yield enough of a profit to be a major component of retirement, unless you go from super popular area to middle of nowhere. But I doubt that is people’s retirement plan either.
There should be no need to sell a home for almost everyone to receive healthcare or long term care (which would be covered by Medicaid/Medicare). And if people wanted to move to higher end facilities, those cost $10k+ per month, so selling a median house to live in one does not buy you much.
Interestingly in some states it's even higher than $636k!
However, I think you're on the nose with the long term care facilities. Medicaid will only pay 100% of any nursing home care (high end or low end) if your countable assets are $2500 or less. Additionally, Medicaid considers your income going back 5 years in order to determine eligibility, so selling (or putting into a trust) sooner rather than later can make sense for a lot of people.
https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/features/when-how-muc...
Society would be healthier if the housing market wasn't managed to be a retirement fund. Would likely end homelessness.