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3 home equity questions homeowners should ask now
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For much of the last two years, borrowers have been saddled with higher interest rates on everything from mortgages to personal loans to credit cards. Fortunately, there’s been one relatively low-rate alternative: home equity borrowing. By utilizing a home equity loan or home equity line of credit (HELOC) in recent years, homeowners could access large sums of money, often at a much lower interest rate than if they had pursued popular alternatives.
As with all financial products and services, however, the timing for using these options is critical. And with inflation seemingly on a downward (if uneven) trajectory and interest rate cuts on the horizon, homeowners need to understand their options before pursuing this type of credit. That understanding starts with obtaining the answers to a series of important questions. Below, we’ll list — and answer — three home equity questions homeowners should be asking now.
Start by seeing what home equity loan rate you could qualify for here.
3 home equity questions homeowners should ask now
Here are three important questions homeowners considering using their home equity this spring should ask now.
Where are interest rates headed?
The benchmark interest rate range, which largely influences rates on borrowing products, is at a 23-year high currently. But many are predicting a reduction in that range soon, possibly as soon as this summer. If that happens then the rates on home equity loans and HELOCs will fall, too.
But an interest rate reduction, as beneficial as it may be, will only be an extra incentive for homeowners considering this option. That’s because rates for home equity loans and HELOCs are already much better than other alternatives like credit cards (hovering around 20% currently) and personal loans (averaging around 12%). Home equity loans and HELOCs, meanwhile, are both under 9% right now — and will fall lower if and when the Federal Reserve issues its first rate cut of 2024.
Learn more about today’s home equity interest rates here.
Is a home equity loan or HELOC better this spring?
Home equity loans and HELOCs each have unique advantages and disadvantages. But the timing here is critical. Thanks to the variable interest rate that HELOCs come with — and the likelihood of interest rate cuts to come later this year — there is a strong case for using a HELOC instead of a home equity loan this spring. This will leave borrowers in a stronger position — if and when rates do fall — to then see their HELOC rate fall in tandem.
Home equity loan users, meanwhile, would have to refinance their loans to secure that lower rate. That said, that variable rate nature works in both ways so borrowers should be prepared for the volatility it presents in advance.
How much home equity do I have?
The average amount of home equity homeowners have right now is around $299,000. That’s a significant amount of money that can be used for debt consolidation, major expenses and even home repairs and renovations. If you use either a home equity loan or HELOC for the latter, you may also qualify for interest tax deductions when you file your return in 2025.
That said, that average amount of equity is exactly that — an average. Depending on multiple factors, you may have more or less to utilize. But if you’re located in a region of the country that has experienced a rise in home values, now may be an opportune time to act, before rates are cut and the real estate market readjusts.
See how much equity you could borrow here today.
The bottom line
With home equity borrowing rates lower than many alternatives — and with the prospect of them falling even lower in the months to come — now is a great time for homeowners to act. Before doing so, however, they should do their research and have the answers to specific questions. By better understanding where home equity interest rates are heading, which type of borrowing option may be preferable and how much equity they realistically have to utilize, they’ll be better prepared to use their home equity both now and in the future.
A passenger successfully landed a small plane on Friday after the pilot had a medical emergency, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 was traveling from Henderson Executive Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada to Monterey Regional Airport in California, with a pilot and one other person on board, the FAA said.
The pilot suffered an unspecified medical emergency while flying, the FAA said, forcing the passenger to take the controls and make an emergency landing at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California.
The Kern Fire Department told CBS News affiliate KBAX that firefighters were called to a report of a medical emergency on the plane. The pilot was reported to be “incapacitated,” the fire department said. Firefighters saw the plane approach and land safely, then “chased” the plane down the runway in emergency vehicles to meet it.
The FAA did not release the passenger or pilot’s identities nor give an update on the pilot’s condition. The pilot was taken to an area hospital by ambulance. The passenger did not report any injuries.
The FAA and the National Transportation Security Board will investigate the incident, the FAA said.
Congolese authorities began vaccination against mpox on Saturday, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread from Congo to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.
The 265,000 doses donated to Congo by the European Union and the U.S. were rolled out in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.
Congo, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa this year. All of the Central African nation’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases. Officials in Congo previously told CBS News that they’ve struggled to diagnose patients and provide basic care in the vast country of 100 million people, where a fragile, under-resourced healthcare system is also burdened by the stigma associated with the virus.
Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded in Congo are in children under age 15, the doses being administered are only meant for adults and will be given to at-risk populations and front-line workers, Health Minister Roger Kamba said this week.
“Strategies have been put in place by the services in order to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” Muboyayi ChikayaI, the minister’s chief of staff, said as he kicked off the vaccination.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
At least 3 million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected from Japan in the coming days, Kamba said.
Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 global outbreak that saw wealthy countries quickly respond with vaccines from their stockpiles while Africa received only a few doses despite pleas from its governments.
However, unlike the global outbreak in 2022 that was overwhelmingly focused on gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of WHO’s mpox emergency committee, recently told reporters.
More than 34,000 suspected cases and 866 deaths from the virus have been recorded across 16 countries in Africa this year. That is a 200% increase compared to the same period last year, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
A lack of diagnostic materials and basic medicines to treat the virus, which can improve survival rates, have also hampered efforts to contain the outbreak, and access to vaccines remains a challenge.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
The continent of 1.4 billion people has only secured a commitment for 5.9 million doses of mpox vaccines, expected to be available from October through December, Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told reporters last week. Congo remains a priority, he said.
At the vaccination drive in Goma, Dr Jean Bruno Kibunda, the WHO representative, warned that North Kivu province is at a risk of a major outbreak due to the “promiscuity observed in the camps” for displaced people, as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis caused by armed violence unfolds there.
The news of the vaccination program brought relief to many in Congo, especially in hospitals that had been struggling to manage the outbreak. Doctors with several charities working in the country have told CBS News they’re overstretched and short on supplies, even having to use tents and mattresses on the floor of makeshift isolation wards to treat a constant influx of patients.
“If everyone could be vaccinated, it would be even better to stop the spread of the disease,” said Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, the medical director of Kavumu Hospital, one of the mpox treatment centers in eastern Congo.
Eastern Congo has been beset by conflict for years, with more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings.
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