American homeowners have accrued hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity, and they’re increasingly borrowing against that value, even though interest rates remain high.
Home equity, the difference between your home’s value and what you owe on your mortgage, has ballooned as home prices have risen. American homeowners with mortgages have $315,000 in home equity on average, or almost $129,000 more than they did at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, according to CoreLogic, a property data firm.
“Homeowners are sitting on a mountain of equity,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at the finance site Bankrate.
Balances on home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs — a type of second mortgage that lets homeowners use their equity as collateral — have risen 20% since 2021, according to a recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Source: Excerpt from article BY ANN CARRNS, THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE – 10/18/2024 via Fidelity.com
Americans are using their home equity again, but nobody seems to know how. Are we back to my home ATM again?
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
A 20% increase since 2021 doesn’t seem all that unusual. Home equity balances are still increasing and people use the equity for remodeling projects or to get out from under higher interest debt. I don’t see a news story here.
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