A reverse mortgage may help you stay where your memories live.
For many people, Martha’s Vineyard isn’t just where they live — it’s where life happened.
It’s the glow of Illumination Night, reaching for the brass ring at the Flying Horses, afternoons at the Ag Fair, fireworks over Oak Bluffs, a late-night run to Back Door Donuts, a grandchild seeing the Island for the first time. These aren’t just memories. They’re what makes this place home.
And yet, for many longtime Vineyard homeowners, staying has quietly become the hard part — not because they haven’t built enough wealth, but because so much of it is sitting in a house that keeps appreciating while their income doesn’t. Property taxes climb. Insurance climbs. A winter of oil heat and storm repairs adds up in a way it never used to. At some point, the question stops being “can I afford to keep living here” and starts being “do I have to sell to find out.”
There’s often another option first.
A Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) — a reverse mortgage — lets homeowners put a portion of their home’s equity to work without selling the home they’ve spent a lifetime building.
Turns Out You Can Spend Equity
Most Vineyard homeowners didn’t get here by accumulating cash — they got here because a house they bought decades ago quietly became worth a fortune. The wealth was never the problem. Reaching it was.
A HECM converts a portion of that equity into loan proceeds — generally tax-free* — that can go toward everyday cash flow, eliminate an existing monthly mortgage payment,** or sit as a growing line of credit for whatever comes next. The home stays yours. You keep living in it.
For a lot of families, this changes the entire question. Instead of “do we sell because the bills got hard to manage,” it becomes “we already have what we need — it was just tied up in the walls around us.”
Turns Out Equity Can Pay for Care, Too
The cost that catches people off guard isn’t usually the mortgage or the taxes — it’s care. A caregiver a few days a week. A stair lift. Someone to help with the things that used to be easy.
Most people assume the house has to be sold to cover it. Often, the house can pay for it instead — a portion of the equity can fund in-home care that lets someone stay independent, in their own kitchen, on their own routine, near the neighbors they’ve known for thirty years. It’s not just about comfort. It’s about not having to trade the home for the care.
A reverse mortgage isn’t the whole answer to long-term care. But it’s often the piece that makes staying possible in the first place.
Turns Out Staying Put Can Save on Taxes
Selling comes with its own surprise, and it’s one people rarely see coming until it’s too late to plan around.
A lot of Vineyard homes were bought decades ago for a fraction of what they’re worth now. Current IRS rules generally exclude up to $250,000 of gain on a primary residence sale ($500,000 for many married couples) — but plenty of Vineyard properties have appreciated well past that. Sell simply to free up income, and the tax bill on the difference can be steep — a bill that staying, and using equity instead, may let a homeowner delay or avoid entirely. Every situation is different here, so this is worth a real conversation with a tax professional before any decision gets made.
It’s About Staying
Reverse mortgages used to be seen as a last resort — something you turned to only when nothing else was left. That’s not how many financial planners think about them anymore. Used well, a HECM sits alongside Social Security, pensions, and investments as one more piece of a retirement plan, not a replacement for the rest.
What it tends to protect, more than anything, is the ability to keep saying yes: yes to one more summer, one more Fair, one more Illumination Night with the grandkids on the porch.
The better question was never “how much is my home worth.”
It’s “how do I use what I’ve already built to stay for more of this.”
After a lifetime spent building that equity, it may be time to let it build something back — more summers, in the place that’s already yours.
*Please consult a tax advisor.
**Borrower must occupy home as primary residence and remain current on property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, the costs of home maintenance, and any HOA fees.
Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, Inc. dba Mutual of Omaha Reverse Mortgage, NMLS ID 1025894. 3131 Camino Del Rio N 1100, San Diego, CA 92108. Connecticut Mortgage Lender License ML-1025894. Florida Mortgage Lender Servicer License MLD1827. Maine Supervised Lender License 1025894. Massachusetts Mortgage Broker and Lender License MC1025894. Licensed by the New Hampshire Banking Department, Mortgage Banker License 1025894MB. Licensed by the New Jersey Banking and Insurance Department. New Jersey Residential Mortgage Lender License 1025894. Pennsylvania Mortgage Lender License