A Home Equity Conversion Mortgage or HECM is a reverse mortgage. It is still a fairly new type of mortgage in comparison to all of the others. A person must be over the year of 65 in order to be eligible for a HECM and the must be the owner and live in the primary residence they plan on taking the mortgage out on. What makes a reverse mortgage so appealing to seniors is that they actually receive payments instead of making them. There are other restrictions for eligibility beyond age. These regulations are decided and regulated by the Federal Government. More specifically the Federal Housing Authority, or FHA for short decides how much the HECM lender can provide an individual with based on the value of there home and there age.