The Fannie Mae Homekeeper is a very old type of non-FHA reverse mortgage that never really caught on because of the low percentage of equity that it made available and because of its high interest rate. The only customers who benefited from it were those above the age of 80 with a home value between $300,000 and $450,000.
The final nail in the Homekeeper’s coffin came when the FHA increased the limits on the HECM reverse mortgage to $417,000. The Homekeeper is now fully obsolete.
Lenders have begun to discontinue the program including the large wholesale lender JB Nutter who announced it is discontinuing the program effective December 22, 2008.