Abstract: This invention identifies the economic benefits of living in a foreign country, where the cost of living is a fraction of the cost of living in the U.S., for retirees. Specifically, the method addresses the needs of those retired homeowners who will consider living abroad only a portion of the year while keeping their current homes as primary residences. A computer-implemented method determines the amount saved from living abroad for part of year for retirees who would buy a second home in a foreign country financed by reverse mortgages. Clearly, the level of saving or benefit depends crucially on the price of the second home in the foreign country, the difference between two countries' living expenses, and the number of months retirees plan to stay in the foreign country, among other inputs. Higher the amount saved, the more likely the retirees in high living-cost areas in the U.S. look into this option of living abroad, particularly those first-generation immigrant senior citizens.

Abstract: This invention relates to retirement communities. Specifically, a computer-implemented method and system enhances retired homeowners' accessibility to the retirement community on time-sharing basis and broadens the client base for the management and/or developers of such communities. The method particularly addresses the needs of those retired homeowners who will consider joining a retired community only a portion of the year while keeping their current homes. It determines the affordability of retirement community living on a time-sharing basis for retired homeowners, using reverse mortgages. The method also addresses the needs of developers of retirement community projects. It does a break-even analysis of the project under different scenarios, enabling a developer to assess the project's feasibility.

Abstract: The present invention addresses uncertainties associated with future college education expenses, and provides a means to resolve these uncertainties. It relates to methods and systems for creating and maintaining an options market for college education expenses. In this system and method, a group of colleges and universities (member institutions) similar in quality and in education expenses form a consortium or contract with an independent third party for an operation of creating an index of member institutions' education expenses and issuing European call options on the index to participating parents who wish to hedge the risk associated with their children's future college education expenses. An index is a weighted average of member institutions' education expenses. A call option here is a pure financial instrument. That is, the option price depends only on the index, not on the likelihood of a child's obtaining admission from one of member institutions.