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Home equity is up $1.3 trillion year-over-year: 5 reasons to tap into yours now
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Home prices have grown in recent years — which is challenging for homebuyers but great for homeowners. That’s because higher home prices typically mean that homeowners have lots of home equity to tap into when they need to borrow money.
And, not only did the average homeowner have about $200,000 in tappable home equity in August 2023, but home equity increased by a combined $1.3 trillion from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a recent CoreLogic report. So, the average homeowner has a significant amount of equity to tap into if they need it.
There are some benefits to borrowing against your home equity. For example, home equity loans and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) typically come with competitive interest rates since they’re secured by your home. So, they may be a compelling borrowing option in a wide range of potential situations.
Find out the home equity loan rates you could qualify for now.
Home equity is up $1.3 trillion year-over-year: 5 reasons to tap into yours now
There are several reasons it may be wise to take advantage of your home equity now, including:
To repair your home before the seasons change
Spring is around the corner, and so are warmer temperatures and wetter weather in many markets. So, if you have a home that needs repairs to its roof or HVAC system, you may want to make those repairs as soon as possible.
And, your home equity may be an efficient way to cover those costs, as the rates on these loans are typically lower than what you can get with a credit card or personal loan. Plus, if you use the proceeds from a home equity loan to repair your home, your home equity loan interest may be tax deductible.
Use your home equity to cover the cost of home repairs today.
To pay off high-interest debt
Right now, interest rates are high across the board — which means that variable-rate debts, like credit card debts, cost a lot more than they did in terms of interest. So, if you’re carrying a balance on your credit cards, it could make sense to use your home equity to pay off what you owe and lower your interest rate while doing so.
“Leveraging a home equity loan is a good option for debt consolidation,” says Eileen Tu, vice president of product development for Rocket Mortgage. “Often times, home equity loans have a lower interest rate than unsecured lines of credit like credit cards.”
But interest isn’t the only reason to consider paying off your high-rate debt with a home equity loan. “Home equity loans also provide predictable and streamlined payments by combining multiple payments into one,” says Tu.
To start a business or side gig
You could also use your home equity to expand your earning potential by investing in a small business or side gig. For example, as spring rolls in, you could use your home equity loan to purchase a lawn mower and other equipment to start a landscaping business.
To buy a second home
As seasons change, your desire for a second home may grow. The good news is that your home equity could be a source of financing to help purchase a second home — especially if you need the money for a down payment.
To pay for other expensive repairs or purchases
There are lots of other reasons why you may need to borrow money. For example, you may need to purchase a new car or make repairs to another property. And, borrowing against your home equity could be a low-cost way to fund these types of expensive repairs and purchases.
Find out how much equity you have access to now.
The bottom line
If you own a home, you may have home equity available to you. Given the competitive interest rates and terms they come with, a home equity loan could be a smart option for covering a wide range of expenses, from repairing your home to paying off high-rate debt, starting a business or even buying a second home this March.
An Israeli airstrike hit a mosque in central Gaza and Palestinian officials said at least 19 people were killed early Sunday. Israeli planes also lit up the skyline across the southern suburbs of Beirut, striking what the military said were Hezbollah targets.
The strike in Gaza hit a mosque where displaced people were sheltering near the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah. Another four people were killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people near the town.
The Israeli military said both strikes targeted militants, without providing evidence.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that the dead from the strike on the mosque were all men, while another man was wounded.
In Beirut, the strikes reportedly targeted a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s only international airport and another formerly used by the Hezbollah-run broadcaster Al-Manar.
Hussein Malla / AP
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. As the Israel-Hamas war reaches the one-year mark, nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest conflict, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
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With just a month to go before Election Day, Sabrina German sees herself as an essential worker for democracy. The director of voter registration in Chatham County, Ga., German has found herself in the spotlight as she works to comply with sweeping changes to state election rules in this critical battleground state.
“The first three words in the preamble, it says, ‘We, the people,’ meaning that we, as public servants, we are working for the people to make sure that they have a fair choice and a voice for the candidates that they’re choosing,” German said.
The overhaul in Georgia has many fronts, from the Republican majority on the state election board, to the Georgia legislature, which has made it possible for individuals to file a flurry of challenges to the voter rolls.
German said she had a thousand challenges to voter registrations in just one county.
Attorney Colin McRae, who chairs the non-partisan County Registration Board (on which he has served for two decades), said, “It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out the agenda behind some of the challenges,” he said. “In a recent set of names that were submitted to us, it included hundreds of college students. And it didn’t take a lot of research to figure out that all of the college students whose registrations were being challenged, all attended Savannah State University, [a] historically Black university.”
While these issues might seem local, they have a national political charge; and former President Trump has weighed in on the campaign trail, praising Republicans on Georgia’s election board. “They’re on fire,” he said. “They’re doing a great job. Three members. Three people are all pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory. They’re fighting.”
“Sunday Morning” reached out to the members of Georgia’s election board praised by Trump. They have long defended their work, and one member told us the controversy over their efforts is “manufactured to suit some other agenda.”
What’s happening in Georgia is just one example of how challenges to the vote are roiling the nation. And the question remains: Are recent changes to state election laws addressing real problems? Or, is it just politics?
David Becker, a CBS News contributor who directs the non-partisan Center for Election Innovation and Research in Washington, D.C., said, “I’ve been looking and researching the quality of our voter lists for about 25 years now, and there’s no question that, right now, our voter lists are as accurate as they’ve ever been.”
So, what is fueling suspicion of voter rolls? “We see a lot of their claims about the elections driven just by outcomes,” said Becker. “They’re not about the actual process.
“The voter lists are public. They could have challenged these things in 2023 or 2021 or 2019. They’re waiting until right before the election, which tells you that they’re not actually interested in cleaning up the lists. What they’re really trying to do is to set the stage for claims that an election was stolen after, presumably, their candidate loses.”
The 2020 election still casts a long shadow. State officials like Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, are bracing themselves for another contsted election.
On January 2, 2021, Raffensperger got an infamous call from then-President Trump asking if he’d “find” votes so Trump could win. “All I want to do is this: I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have, because we won the state,” Trump said in a recorded conversation.
Raffensperger resisted pressure to not certify the 2020 election in Georgia. Asked if he would resist pressure again, he said, “I’ll do my job. I’ll follow the law, and I’ll follow the Constitution.”
Raffensperger will once again oversee and certify Georgia’s elections. Asked whether he believes any of the changes put forth by the election board are necessary, Raffensperger replied, “No. Not one.”
Raffensperger says voting is safe and secure in Georgia. Asked why the election board members keeps making changes to the rules, he said, “I think that many of them are living in the past, and they can’t accept what happened in 2020.”
Bloomsbury
Carol Anderson, an author and voting rights activist who teaches at Emory University, said, “One of the things about voter suppression is that it always looks innocuous, it always looks reasonable, except it’s not. What’s happening in Georgia with voting rights is that, you have a massive change of demography happening. So, you have a growing African-American population. You have a sizable Latino population. You have a sizable and engaged Asian-American population.
“And so, it is a power clash between a vision of a new Georgia and … the vision of the old Georgia, our old ways,” she said.
Chatham County’s Sabrina German said, because of the pressures on election workers, she thinks about leaving every day. German may be weary, but she and Colin McRae say their experience in 2020 has prepared them for whatever comes next.
McRae said he took it personally when Donald Trump asked the secretary of state to “find” 11,000 votes to put him over Joe Biden. “Of course, we took it personally; any criticism of the system is a criticism of the individuals who make up that system,” said McRae. “Again, the truth will come out. The truth will win out.”
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Story produced by Ed Forgotson. Editor: Carol Ross.
