The 1960s tract home a Surf City family bought for the beach lifestyle is now a seven-figure asset. That appreciation — not a new payment — can fund the years of enjoying what you moved here for.
Huntington Beach has quietly become a jumbo market. Zillow’s citywide average near $1,370,000 — and rising — clears the 2026 FHA HECM limit of $1,249,125, which means the ordinary HB tract home from the surf-boom years now benefits from the same proprietary programs built for coastal estates: lending against actual value to $4 million, age 55 eligibility, no FHA premium. Closer to the wetlands and inland, values dip back toward the limit and the HECM comparison tightens — so I run both on every file.
Huntington Harbour deserves its own sentence: waterfront homes with dock rights are exactly the property type the jumbo programs exist for, and exactly the type where an experienced broker earns the fee — appraisals on unique waterfront properties need to be managed, not merely ordered.
The client I meet most in HB is the owner who arrived for the beach in 1975 and simply never found a reason to leave. The house is paid off or close to it; the goal isn’t cash so much as insurance against the future — care costs, a long retirement, helping the kids into this impossible market. A growing standby line of credit, or a jumbo lump sum deployed with an advisor, gets there without disturbing the life you built two blocks from the sand.
Same broker, same phone number, three different instruments. I run the ones that apply to your home side by side — the numbers pick the winner, not the sales pitch.
Who qualifies: homeowners 62+ for the FHA HECM (55+ for many jumbo programs), living in the home as their primary residence, with sufficient equity and a financial assessment showing capacity to meet the obligations below. Independent counseling with a HUD-approved agency is required before a HECM — you choose the agency freely from the HUD roster (national line: 800-569-4287), and California adds its own consumer protections, including a cooling-off period.
What you must keep paying: property taxes (every line of the bill), homeowner’s insurance, reasonable home maintenance, and HOA dues where applicable. No monthly mortgage payment is required while you live in the home and meet these obligations — but failing to meet them can cause the loan to become due and payable. I structure set-asides when automating these payments is the safer plan.
What protects you: title stays in your name or your trust; the loan is non-recourse, so neither you nor your heirs can owe more than the home’s value; and heirs keep every dollar of remaining equity when the home is sold.
Fifty years of Prop 13 makes for striking HB tax bills — owners paying on 1970s assessments for homes now worth $1.4 million. A reverse mortgage doesn’t touch the assessment. Under Proposition 19, owners 55+ can carry that low base to a replacement home anywhere in California — and if the replacement costs more, the difference is simply added to the transferred base rather than forfeiting it.
Waterfront appraisal is the craft here — comparable selection on the Harbour makes or breaks the value conclusion, and the value drives everything. I manage that process actively. The jumbo programs are comfortable with Harbour property types, dock rights included.
They cost more upfront than a HELOC and less than selling your home — the honest comparison depends on what you'd otherwise do. On HB values, note the jumbo programs carry no FHA insurance premium, which removes the single biggest upfront cost people cite. I show every cost on one page, next to the alternatives, before you decide anything.
You can take proceeds as you choose, but borrowing to invest is a strategy decision for you and your financial advisor, not a sales pitch you should ever hear from a mortgage broker. Where I see it done well, it's conservative: retiring other debt, funding care reserves, de-risking the drawdown plan.
The loan continues as long as one borrower (or protected spouse) lives in the home as their primary residence — a HECM borrower can be away for care up to 12 consecutive months before residency is affected. It becomes due when the last borrower permanently leaves. We structure with that scenario on the table, not ignored.
Every page on this site is written and maintained by me — the same person who answers the phone, runs your numbers, and handles your file start to finish. No call center, no hand-offs, no lead-selling. More about how I work →
Fifteen minutes on the phone and you’ll know what your home and age actually produce — HECM and jumbo, side by side, in writing. If it doesn’t serve you, I’ll be the first to say so.
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