Equity line of credit a good idea to pay off my mortgage?
Uh…you can’t use an equity line to pay off your mortgage, because you would still have to pay back the equity line, which is ANOTHER ARM!!!! Think about it, if you owed Bank of America $100K and I gave you a loan for $100K, and you paid off BOA, you will still owe me $100K. Yes, there IS a catch to it. The 4.5% is ANOTHER ARM rate and will adjust and some of them even adjust monthly. Your payment will go nowhere but up. Better plan: The fixed rates are LOWER than 7.125 right now, especially for about 50% LTV…so get him to do a rate/term refinance (which means no cash out) on a 15 year (not 30) note. That way, you can have your mortgage 100% PAID OFF very soon. PS: ALL INTEREST paid in mortgage interest on your PRIMARY residence is ALWAYS tax deductable. There is also no such thing as not paying closing costs or fees. That is why those programs are called no “out of pocket” b/c they roll all of those costs into the loan…that is how the bank and the LO gets paid.
If you use an equity line of credit to “pay off your mortgage loan” – you will have a new loan on your house! An equity line is money still secured by your house. Your “mortgage” will not have a zero balance. Also, I have never heard of a “fixed rate” equity line! As for no fees, closing costs – that is possible if he is getting paid by the lender and covering the fees, but he has to make a profit somewhere! If you have a lot of equity in your house, you should easily qualify for a fixed rate first mortgage at a good rate. Consider paying extra points on the loan to secure a better rate. Just calculate how long it would take to make up the difference between the cost of the points and paying the rate on your current ARM loan. If it is just a few years, it might be worth it. Don’t be “taken”. Good luck!
I’m really shocked at some of the answers here. You certainly can get a equity line to pay off a mortgage. They are two seperate entities based on the house. Each one is a seperate loan with your house used as collateral. Saying that, it doesn’t mean it’s the full story. An equity line is usually an APR and is based on the prime rate. Right now, prime is at 5% so that must mean he’s offering you an equity line at 3/4% lower then prime. If prime goes up (which most is expecting it to in the next year) then so will your percent on the equity line. However, you can bet it will always be lower then the current ARM you have now. Obviously you have equity in your home if they are willing to give you a equity line, you also have other options. If you want to re-fianance, the current 30 year fixed loan is in the high 6 percent range but it is fixed. You can get the rate lower by going down to 15 years or less. Right now, the prime will have to go up over 7% to make the equity line come near th
Probably not a good idea. It all really depends on what your intentions are with the property. Remember ARM loans aren’t bad but can be very damaging if used in the wrong situation. Samething with equity lines of credit (which is a type of ARM, by the way), they are great if utilized correctly but can turn into a total nightmare if abused. There are a couple of things that your mortgage company told you that doesn’t make sense. “He said if I take a equity line of credit, to pay off the balance of the house I would have to pay no fees, or closing cost. Which means that my mortgage would have a 0 ballance.”. That will need some explanation. If you have a balance on your current mortgage, how can you have a zero balance after you refinance it? The only way to do that is to payoff the mortgage with money you have on hand. If you refinance your current mortgage, your new lender will be paying off what is owed to your current lender. Then you will continue to pay your new lender under the ra
This is actually a method that many people use to accelerate the payoff time of there mortgage by linking a HELOC to your mortgage. It has been used for years in other countries and is now starting to catch on here. The wonderful thing about it is that you don’t have to refinance and make no extra payments. It actually has the effect of lowering the daily balance on your principal which lowers the interest. You can learn more about how this system works and how it calculates your payments every month at this website: http://www.mortgagemagicsoftware.
