[Rick Lee]

Well, from that link I posted, it looks like most reverse mortgages are FHA and ALL FHA loans have an upfront and a monthly MIP - mortgage insurance premium. These are about as heavily regulated as it gets because they're FHA, and they're not cheap by any means. Since that article was written in 2010, FHA's MIP rates have increased a lot, I think more than doubled, which is what prevents me from refinancing (I bought my last house in 2010). I'm actually better off paying the higher interest rate, since that's tax deductible than paying a lower interest rate and a higher MIP, which is not tax deductible. So be careful about getting upset over mortgage insurance. It's part of all FHA loans and it's a set rate for everyone, regardless of credit or loan amount.

I still don't see any shenanigans going on here unless you post a GFE. They're allowed to charge up to 3% of the loan amount as the "origination fee" and it looks like this one is well below that. So that probably means there are other junk fees (doc prep, application fee, underwriting, etc.) that would normally be covered by the origination, but will be listed outside thereof. You can always shop around, but FHA loans have a lot of set in stone fees you can't get around. If you think you're getting around them, they're just hidden in the rate or other fees, though new laws make those more difficult to hide.