Once you have purchased a home and are making monthly payments, you are in the process of building equity. The opportunity to use the equity you have built up in your home is one of the benefits of homeownership.

The equity you have built up can be used for many purposes on your advantage. Many people will use this equity to draw out cash by refinancing their house; the cash may be use to finance other major purchases such as second mortgage, making major improvement to your property or to fund their children educational expenses.

If you are in bad debt situation, your equity can be the hero in saving you from bankruptcy. You can pledge your equity to apply for a home equity loan which will allow you to borrow a relatively large amount of money to consolidate your debts. As compare to other personal or unsecured loan, a home equity loan is easier to get approve even you are in a bad debts situation; lenders may be more liberal because they view home equity loan as relatively safe. You can’t disappear with your house or hide it if you default on your loan, so the lender has a good chance of collecting the collateral.

Besides using your equity for bad debt consolidation, you may use it for other high-interest rates debt consolidation. One of the advantages of home equity loans are they typically have lower interest. And you could you this advantage to consolidate all your high-interest monthly payments into a single loan which had a considerably lower interest rate.

Typically you are allowed to refinance up to 75%, (sometimes 80%), of the value of the property on conforming loans whereas on jumbo loans you are limited to 70% of the property’s value. For example, if your home is now valued at $150,000 and your loan balance is $70,000, you might be able to get a new $150,000 x 75% = 112,500 mortgage. That would allow you to repay the existing $70,000 balance and use the $42,500 for your financial needs.

Another possibility to use the equity to your advantage is home equity lines. Many lenders offers home equity lines for homeowners and allow them to draw cash advances with their credit card or write checks up to certain credit limit.

Before using a home equity loan or home equity credit line for any purpose, you should be aware of the pitfalls of these loans. The main thing is that you can lose your home if you fail to meet the payment schedule required by the loan. Therefore you need to consider it carefully before do a cash-out with your equity.



Thanks to Cornie Herring for contributing this article to our Equity blog:

Reverse Equity Mortgage

Not many know and understand the concept of home equity. And truth is that home equity loans are probably the cheapest source of finance out there. Many do not know that they can benefit from the equity they have built on their home by getting home equity loans instead of expensive unsecured personal loans, pay day loans or other financial products.

Provided that you know exactly how home equity works and how it guarantees home equity loans and lines of credit. Most of the drawbacks that these loans may have just fade away if you are responsible enough to prepare for unexpected expenses. And then, you can enjoy from inexpensive financing that you would not be able to get other way.

Home Equity

Equity is the remaining value of your property that can be used for further guaranteeing additional loans. If your property has no liens or mortgages, then the equity on your home is exactly 100% of the home value. This figure may be calculated according to the purchase price or, if some time has passed, a revaluation must be done.

However, in most cases, properties have at least mortgage loan attached to them. Thus, the equity on your home is the difference between the home value and the amount of outstanding debt that the property is guaranteeing at the time. This remaining value can be used as collateral for additional loans that have similar loan terms as home loans.

For example: If you own a property worth $100,000 with no liens or mortgages, then, the equity on your home is $100,000, the 100% of the price of the property. However, if you have a mortgage on your home with $60,000 of debt remaining, the equity on your home is $40,000, the 40% of the home value. This number is calculated by subtracting the outstanding debt amount to the purchase price or the valuation price of the property.

Equity Financing And Percentages

There is an additional complexity when it comes to home equity loans. In an Ideal scenario, you could get to finance up to 100% of your home equity or 100% of your home value combining your mortgage loan and any home equity loans. However, few lenders are willing to lend up to 100% of the value of the property (though some lend even more).

Instead, most lenders draw a line at an 85%. Thus, you can only get 85% financing; but 85% of what? And that’s another problem. Some lenders will define the credit limit on the 85% of the remaining equity on your home, but other will define it on the 85% of the home value. Thus, depending on the lender, the amount of money you can get differs.

For example: Say you have a property worth $100,000 and your current mortgage stands in $50,000. If the limit is 85% of the home value, then the amount of money you can get with your home loan and your home equity loan combined is $85,000, thus, you can withdraw up to $35,000 with a home equity loan.

But if the limit is fixed on the 85% of the home equity, then, you can obtain up to 85% of the remaining equity on your home ($50,000). Thus, you could obtain up to $42,500 which is a significantly higher amount. That being said, you should pay attention to the loan terms when requesting loan quotes from different lenders as what you can get out of a home equity loan differs from one lender to another.



Thanks to Melissa Kellett for contributing this article to our Equity blog:

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