Parallel Structure Makes Sentences Smoother

An advertisement this week for a "government backed Home Equity Conversion" contained the following sentence:

Learn how the Government provides home equity conversions to seniors to preserve what they have, avoid outliving income, and retaining financial independence while never leaving home.

Whoever created this sentence meant to suggest that this type of home equity conversion would help senior citizens do THREE things:

1. preserve what they have
2. avoid outliving their income
3. retain financial independence while never leaving home

Unfortunately, because the sentence does NOT put all three of these things in the same format, the reader has trouble figuring out the meaning. In addition, because the sentence does not use wording that expresses the cause/effect relationship, the main point is weak.

Here is my suggestion for a much-improved sentence:

Learn how the Government provides home equity conversions to help seniors preserve what they have, avoid outliving their income, and retain financial independence without having to give up their home.

I hope you agree that this is much clearer. Please leave a comment below to let me know what you think.