As the housing crisis deepens, some banks are freezing existing home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). They tell borrowers that there's no more money available.

You might think that this just happens in the subprime area, but even people with strong credit are affected. The banks argue that falling home prices make it harder to recover on bad loans. The New York Times reports that hundreds of thousands of HELOCs have been frozen so far, and there's more to come.

Does this mean you should exhaust any money available in your HELOC? That's tough to say. You should certainly prepare for the prospect of a HELOC freeze or decrease in the amount of money available to you.

Further reading:

• How a Line of Credit Works