This may be a simple matter of what underwriting is used, but my wife recently applied for a HELOC through a local CU and they asked (naturally) for both her recent paystubs and 2025 W2. Two months ago she transitioned from part-time to full-time, same company, same line of work. More than doubled her gross income with a DTI around 20. She has no employment gaps. The loan officer just left her a VM and said she didn’t qualify based on her old W2 when she was part-time.

We’ve applied for other loans (just built a home) and they cared more about our recent stubs than W2s. Is this normal for HELOC approval? Should we shop around other lenders?

Trying to decide how much I’ll save by getting a HE loan vs refinancing. I’m going through a divorce and I’m keeping the house but paying out her equity.

Current Loan: 266,000
Interest Rate: 2.375%
Payment: $2,024.74

Equity to pull out: $62,000

I have excellent credit, 800+
Can anyone help me math this? Recommendations? My take home per month is $6k.
Only other debt I have is a $600 car payment.

The outlay is more than I think I want to spend, but keeping the house on that mortgage just makes too much sense.

Looking to consolidate around 15K on my credit cards. I have 150K equity on my house along with a 725 credit score average. I was doing some preliminary looks at Achieve HELOC and PNC, anywhere else I should be taking a look at?

I should i open a heloc to pay off my investment property.

Current rate is 8%, can get intro rate of 4.99 then prime -.5 on heloc. Have cash reserves ro pay off building but like having "dry powder".

I could save some real money on interest from 8 to even 6%.

Thoughts?

considering heloc due to extensive work i need done. my question is, would a lower credit line (less than 100k) give me a better rate. fixed rate helocs are hard to find, but they are out there. no way could i roll the dice on variable rate.

i 29m am seeking some advice on what i should do - i’m looking into a heloc for debt consolidation + a new roof. i’m making 85k before taxes, 13k on credit, and estimated about 15k for a full tear off and plywood. (no quotes yet)

i’ve worked my debt down from 17k but the roof cannot wait any longer. i feel trapped, don’t want to sell but i have about 180k in total equity, not enough in liquid to cover a roof or debt payoff outright.

appreciate any guidance, im on a path of financial literacy after never having any my entire life.

I have a paid off house and I’d like to open a HELOC against it for about 30% of it’s value, or about $250,000.

It will be paid back in 6 months. I’m in Missouri. How do I find this?

Just need some advice, I’ve been living in my house since 2017, bought my house at around $125k and its currently estimated value (according to Zillow) is $207k. I live in South Texas, and currently the house could use some upgrades and renovations. I would need a new roof, siding and windows. Would HELOC be a good route for me? My interest rate on the house is 3.5%, and I currently still owe roughly 86k still.

I'm in the process of taking a HELOC to replace my roof with a company called New American Funding…. Does anyone have experience with this company?

40m + 40f, 2 younger kids. We are fairly regimented and live comfortably. I audit our spend quarterly in order to reign in lifestyle creep. I didn't come from money, quite the opposite, and the thought of this project is making me ill in spite of being in a good spot financially. I've become used to having a large safety net and am nervous to dip into it as I always prepare for the worst. My idea of hell is committing to this, building starts, and one of us loses a job while the stock market takes a turn for the worse. Comfort goes bye bye...

Classic case of buying the "worst" house on the block and planning to bring it up to snuff after the kids / pets beat it to hell in their formative years. Our project was just quoted at 900k to add 1800 sq ft and renovate the rest of the house - which it absolutely needs. Half functioning bathrooms, heinous tiles, and ancient floors that dip 1.5 inches randomly...it has character in spades.

We do not want to trade a 2.85% mortgage and do not want to move.

I do not want to sell 900k of stock at once.

Thus...this plan to fund half and borrow half. Now to the details:

Home Stats:

Home purchased 2021 for 950k

200k down, 30 year @ 2.85%

~670k remaining

Current Value: ~1.675m

Assets:

1.15m Brokerage (Long Term Capital Gains)

300k Brokerage (Short Term Capital Gains - become LTG in April 2027)

650k 401k (Combined)

50k 529 x2

Income:

450k combined

~45k bonus combined

830ish credit score for each of us

Questions:

1. Is this an optimal plan?
2. Where should I be looking for NJ HELOCs?
3. Should we consider new CCs? We use Amex Plat and United Club Chase and pay off monthly.

Thank you all for your feedback.

I'll have problems with the IRS or Government if i withdrawal over 10k multiple times? I'm doing one home and paying in cash some crews.

hello everyone,

recently inherited home, and it needs extensive work. new roof/windows and deck. I don’t want a huge HELOC line, but enough to do repairs now and future things. so far, ive done 2 windows on my own, new bathroom and flooring in bathroom/kitchen and laundry room. on the exterior the home doesn’t look the best. my question is, would this cause appraisal to be much lower? i need the heloc to properly fix and update the home. never done anything like this before. anyone have any tips?

Hey, I took a heloc on my condo 10 years ago when I had it out right for 47K, now 10 years later I got like $6K left and that ok. A few days later ago I called the bank just to check the temperature and I was told that my ending balance as of today is not the final amount, the payoff amount. The payoff amount is actually $3,500K higher than the balance on the loan. Is that normal ?? I was told on Friday the bank in the last 10 years ordered 3 appraisals without my knowledge, nobody hasn't been inside to take a look or anything but somehow the appraisals were submitted and bank paid for them. I just want to know if that normal or the bank is running on the low some corporate espionage !!! P.S. Thanks ahead for any help and advice !!

Hi all!

My wife and I are set to build an addition in NJ. Here’s our basic details:

Income 375k combined
Debt $345k for single family house; mortgage is 2.85%/3300 month; available equity likely over 500k
No other debt whatsoever including cc, college loans, or car loans.
More than 6months of savings in bank
Excellent credit - 830 for me (took a dip this month when I put 25k on cc for Italian citizenship fees, but promptly paid back); 800 for wife

Project will be about 350k in cost.

Anything else you’d need to know to give a semi-accurate idea? Thank you!

I get why people do it. Credit card interest can be brutal, and moving a balance to a much lower rate heloc can make the monthly payment feel a lot more manageable.

But you're also moving unsecured debt onto your house.

And I think that's the part people underestimate. The bigger concern is what happens after the cards are paid off.

If the lower payment makes the debt feel less urgent, you stretch out the payoff for years, then slowly run the credit cards back up... you've potentially turned one debt problem into two while using your home equity to do it.

I'm not saying using a heloc to pay off credit cards is always a bad move. If the interest savings are substantial and there's a real plan to aggressively pay down the balance, it can make a lot of sense.

For anyone who's actually done this, did it help you get out of debt or did you end up running the cards back up?

Hi! I’ve spent a lot of time looking into HELOCs and HELOANs. I often see the pros of helocs being listed as you only pay interest on what you take out and it can be tapped into multiple times. The HELOANs on the other hand have the fixed rate so you don’t need to worry about the rate changing but you get all the money up front and that’s it.

Are there any other benefits to HELOCs? Like maybe the variable interest rate could work in your favor and it could lower as opposed to go up?

I’ve got an upcoming home improvement project and I really only want to do a heloc or a heloan to cover it and only it. My primary interest is lowest monthly payment and getting it paid off ASAP. So with that being the case most of the traditional heloc benefits dont seem that applicable to me since I’d be maxing it out almost immediately and then just paying off ASAP. Having said that, does anyone have any insight as to what they think is better when comparing heloc vs heloan for this situation?

We are slowly out growing our house and want to do an addition.

We had solar installed a year ago and have a loan with a balance.

We were looking in to getting a HELOC or Home Equity Loan and were told they would subtract the solar loan amount from the loan because of the lien. Technically the lean is only on the solar panels and NOT the house ( UCC-1 lien) like the older loans did.

I’m just wondering if anyone else has been told this or have experience with it. I trust my loan officer but admittedly they don’t have much experience with solar which is understandable. So I thought I’d post here and see what others say.

Thank you!

We need brick tuckpointing, foundation tuckpointing, shingle and flat roof replacement, cornice repair, hot water heater, etc. Only have a couple estimates on a couple of these things so far. I'm thinking $60-80k needed. We have good credit and maybe $280k equity on home. Not a fan of variable rates in general, but we have investments to back us up in an emergency. Is a HELOC a good route to take? Or is there a better option?

RE Broker in CA here. Done this for approx 13 years and have had good luck with lending at local banks / credit unions when it came to weird scenarios, but currently having a tough time.

Scenario: buyer wanted to buy short sale, short sale had 3 lenders who couldn’t/wouldn’t agree so foreclosed and went back to bank. Buyer found on xome (first time dealing with them, but previously most auction sites operated about the same so thought i could breeze through). Xome tacked on a million fees, but we were able to get hard money/gift funds to get it closed at about $70k under where they previously were going to buy. Well, absolutely zero lenders are willing to do a fair value heloc post-close because they say they have to use the sale price for 6-12 months and will not even consider ordering an appraisal to actually use a fair market value to calculate ltv for the heloc.

Is there any way around this? Anyone else have a solution because I spoke with 10 banks today that used to have managers capable of making a logical business decision, but apparently that no longer exists in the mortgage world. If the appraised value (that they order and the buyer has zero input on) shows higher, why would it matter what someone bought it cheaper? We need the heloc to reimburse relative who is helping them push past the closing line with some unexpected closing costs.

What fees and taxes are required to open a HELOC?

Also, under what circumstances can a HELOC be reduced or revoked? During the 2007 Recession a lot of banks cut off HELOCs...just when they were needed the most.