'The Daily Show' Mocks Reverse Mortgage Scams

By Andrew Sanford | TV | November 30, 2023 |

By Andrew Sanford | TV | November 30, 2023 |

My wife and I were this close to buying a house early this year. By “this close,” I mean we checked our finances, got pre-approved for a loan, and realized we still didn’t have enough money. Despite saving for years, the only houses we could afford were often dirty, falling apart, poorly built, or some mix of the three. Even with these subpar homes as our options, if someone had wanted to outbid us, they likely could have. This isn’t a “woe is me” post. My family is much better off than a lot of others. It’s more to show that the housing market already seemed predatory and unrealistically competitive, and that was before I learned about reverse mortgages.

Reverse Mortgages, from the information I’ve gathered from a three-minute Daily Show sketch, are a scam. They allow people to “own” a home and not make payments until the owner sells their home or dies. If they perish, the financial burden falls onto their children. It sounds eerily similar to timeshares, just with a fancier dress. Spoiler alert: timeshares are also a scam.

A deeply insidious aspect of reverse mortgages is that they are marketed almost exclusively to senior citizens. One commercial referenced and parodied in the sketch features Blue Bloods star Tom Selleck. What’s that? You’ve never seen an episode of Blue Bloods? Good news! You are not the target market for this scam and likely aren’t concerned with Elderly Onset Rheumatoid Arthritis. Congratulations!

The Daily Show still hasn’t settled on a host, but they’re still firing on all cylinders with their sketches. This feels like something we’d usually see on Last Week Tonight (or older episodes of The Daily Show). That’s not a dig at anyone. I love both shows. LWT tends to be a little sharper. That being said, The Daily Show is currently hot on its tail. The host isn’t the only thing that makes the show great, and the writers seem determined to prove that.