With home values rising, more Americans have equity in their homes. That has generated plenty of cheers from homeowners, and it’s also brought back the home equity line of credit as a popular option for the first time since before the Great Recession. Americans took out $23.4 billion in home equity lines in the first quarter of 2014, up 15.5 percent from 2013 and the highest number in six years, according to Equifax, a credit reporting agency. If your mortgage is less than 80 percent of your home’s value, you might want to join that group. But the greatest lesson of the recent real estate boom and bust is that turning home equity into cash is best done with great care. To read the full story on this topic, with some expert advice, visit our sister site, Living on the Cheap.
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