Willingness to consider applying for reverse mortgage in Hong Kong Chinese middle-aged homeowners

The reverse mortgage plan has been proposed as a viable solution to improve or maintain the economic status of older adults who are “house-rich but cash-poor”. The objectives of the current study were: (1) to find out the percentages of the middle-aged (aged between 45 and 59) homeowners in Hong Kong who would consider applying for the reverse mortgage plan when they retired or became older and (2) to identify socio-demographic, economic and health-related characteristics that were significantly related to the willingness to consider applying for the reverse mortgage plan. In a random sample of 1867 Hong Kong middle-aged adults, 663 of them owned their self-occupied flats. Approximately, 11%±2.4% (p<0.05) of these home-owners definitely or probably would consider to apply for such plan if it was available in Hong Kong local banks. Moreover, using logistic regression analyses, we found that childlessness and possession of stocks, bonds or funds were positively related to the willingness to consider applying for the plan and the amount of financial asset (excluding their self-occupied properties) was negatively associated with that willingness. Results suggest that the reverse mortgage may be another feasible option to secure the retirement income for the next cohort of older adults in the coming two decades.