Comment on A conundrum
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoafter that you can tap into home equity and repair say a roof.
There’s no, “tapping into home equity.” There’s only extending the mortgage with more debt.
20 years ago my sister did all sorts of home improvements that she said were free because she was “tapping into equity”. Now she’s nearing retirement and complains she still has giant mortgage payments.
arrow74@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I never said it was free and I never said it wasn’t a debt. Like obviously it is a debt, anyone that reads “tapping into home equity” as meaning free money doesn’t understand basic finance.
It doesn’t have to extend your mortgage. You can take it out as a second line of credit as an additional loan to pay back monthly. Obviously the ideal would be to have the savings to cover necessary home repairs, but if you don’t this is typically the cheapest way to get a loan to do necessary maintenance.
Sounds like your sister used her equity to refinance her loan and recieved a payout for the difference. That’s going to restart your mortgage and is probably not the best way to go about accessing home equity.
So yeah don’t take on reckless debt you can’t payback. You can responsibly use your home equity for maintenance if you need to though.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Second line of credit or mortgage, its still debt.
Your suggestion translates to “Don’t worry about home repairs, just take on more debt to pay them.”
arrow74@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Once again everyone knows that is debt. Of course it is debt.
It just so happens to be the lowest interest form of debt you can take and even when added with an existing mortgage payment ia still insanely cheaper than comparable rents for the same property.
My statement is “yes homes have maintenance and that can come at unexpected costs. However you can access low interest debt if you need to. And even if you do you’ll still pay less than renting a comparable property for the same amount of time”
Please consider the whole and dont just take snippets out of context. Homes come with costs, still way cheaper than renting. You don’t have to take out a loan for home maintenance. You can, but you don’t have to.