Understanding A Bad Credit Home Equity Loan

If a person has bad credit, trying to get a loan for new car, pay off medical debts or even trying to consolidate all your credit cards can be if very difficult process. However, for homeowners who are also facing these challenges with bad credit, there may be hope. If you have built up some equity as a homeowner, a bad credit home equity loan made just be the ticket that you're looking for.

Most people with bad credit are very reluctant to apply for a loan. Perhaps they may feel some shame about exposing their past credit history. However, the beauty of a bad credit home equity loan is that you are only borrowing against the equity that you have built the up in your home. As long as you avoid using credit cards or other lines of credit, once you have borrowed against your home, and have paid off that loan, you can actually repair your credit history in very short order.

So What is Home Equity?

Before you decide to run out and apply for a loan, let's start off by explaining what home equity is and what it is not. In its simplest explanation, home equity is the amount that your home praises for on the current real estate market, minus the current balance of your mortgage. For example, let's say your home is currently appraised at $200,000 and you have a remaining balance of $50,000 owing on your mortgage; then the amount of equity that you have is $150,000. This means that you can borrow up to $150,000 on a bad credit home equity loan.

Notice that we say it's "up to" $150,000. Just because you have $150,000 in equity, doesn't mean that you will get the full $150,000 loan. The banks will look into other factors as well. Such as your actual credit history, your current income as well as your spouse's income too, your length of employment, etc.

An experienced loans officer will take into account all these factors before making a decision on how much to loan you. Just be sure to bring plenty of information as well as proof of all real income on hand when you apply for a bad credit home equity loan. The more information you can provide, the better the odds of you getting a loan.

If you require a bad credit home equity loan to pay off some over due bills or credit cards, you may want to make certain that you have built up enough equity in your home to be able to cover the amount that you will need to borrow. There are two ways to build equity in your home. One way is to pay off your mortgage faster. The other way is to wait for your home to appreciate in value. Over a period of time, chances are pretty good that your home will rise in value. Of course, if you can do both (double upon your mortgage payments AND wait till your home appreciates in value), then that will really help you in getting that loan.

by Kerry Ng