1. Home
  2. Business & Finance
  3. Banking / Loans
photo of Justin Pritchard
Justin's Banking / Loans Blog

By Justin Pritchard, About.com Guide to Banking / Loans since 2005

Banks Freeze Home Equity Lines

Tuesday April 15, 2008
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:

Comments

No comments yet. Leave a Comment

Leave a Comment

Line and paragraph breaks are automatic. Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title="">, <b>, <i>, <strike>

Discuss
Community Forum
Explore Banking / Loans
About.com Special Features

Start your new business on the right foot with these helpful tips. More >

Easy steps to take control of your credit card debt. More >

  1. Home
  2. Business & Finance
  3. Banking / Loans

©2009 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company.

All rights reserved.