Michael and Tania Berrigan, aged 67 and 63, respectively, recently moved from Arizona to South Carolina’s “Lowcountry” to complete their professional careers and to position themselves for retirement in the highly sought after 55+ retirement community of Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head.
They’re now living in a newly constructed dream retirement home – that does not require a new monthly mortgage payment – thanks to a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM).
The couple grew up in the Boston area where Michael worked in IT and Tania in sales. They raised two sons, Darren and Joshua.
Michael spent the early part of his career working as a contractor for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), a part of the federal government created during the Eisenhower administration that has been credited with shaping the modern world, with technologies like weather satellites, GPS, drones, stealth technology, voice interfaces, the personal computer and the internet.
‘I was a field service engineer,” says Michael, and “I worked in sales support,” adds Tania.
In 2022, the Berrigans started searching for a new place to spend their retirement years and settled on South Carolina.
Tania was on Latitude Margaritaville’s Facebook page when she spotted a notice posted by a local Realtor and Jim Davidson, a reverse mortgage loan officer with Mutual of Omaha Mortgage.
While most reverse mortgages made today are for people who want to age in place in their existing homes, in 2008, Congress authorized the Federal Housing Administration to create a purchase option for its HECM program.
With HECM for Purchase, borrowers take funds from the sale of their previous home or from savings and combine those proceeds with funds from the reverse mortgage to purchase the new property outright, thus eliminating a monthly mortgage payment.
In the Berrigan’s case, the purchase price for their new home was $563,271. They brought $361,620 to the closing table – which represented 64 percent of the purchase price – while the remaining $201,621 came from the reverse mortgage.
They sought out Davidson, who answered their questions and guided them through the application process. All their pre-closing work was done remotely while the Berrigan’s were still living in Arizona.
“We lived in an apartment in Arizona for 15 months while our new home was being built,” says Michael.
In early October 2024, they packed their U-Haul, and set out on the long journey to South Carolina. On October 31 (Halloween day), the Berrigan’s closed the purchase and took the keys to their new residence.
The Berrigans are the “American Dream” embodied. A middleclass family who worked hard and sacrificed. Their work paid off and America has benefited. FHA’s HECM has helped make it possible for them to enjoy a more comfortable and stress-free retirement in the beautiful South Carolina low country.
“We’re grateful for the reverse mortgage and to Jim for assisting us,” says Tania. “This will be our final home and it couldn’t be in a better location. We’re very happy.”