Home equity loans are very popular nowadays, especially with the lending institutions. What is a home equity loan? Say you have a house that is worth $100,000. You owe $80,000 to the bank for the home. That leaves you with $20,000 in home equity that you can borrow; $100,000 the house is worth minus the $80,000 you still owe.

Banks and lending institutions are more than willing to issue you a loan for all or part of the equity you posses in your home if you are willing to let them. They simply issue you a second mortgage on your house and then put a lien against your home for the amount of the loan they have issued. This provides the lending institutions with a fairly secure loan using the home as collateral. What that means is that in the case of a defaulted loan they can lay claim to equity from the sale of the home containing their lien.

What are the benefits of a home equity loan? The benefits to the borrower are many, but the main benefit is that the interest paid on a home equity loan is tax deductible, for most people, just like the interest on your primary mortgage. So depending on your tax bracket and the amount of the home equity loan, the savings generated from the tax deduction can be attractive. If you were to take a simple loan from a bank or borrow from your credit card you would not be able to deduct the interest payments on those loans from your taxes like you can with a home equity loan.

The process for obtaining a home equity loan is fairly simple. You start by contacting a lending institution that provides home equity loans. The institution will schedule an appraisal of your home. The appraisal will cost around $500. That amount can usually be rolled back in to your new loan so that you do not have to come up with the cash. Once the appraisal is done, the lending institution will run a credit report on you and determine your credit score. Your credit score will then determine the amount of credit they are willing to extend, the interest rate for your loan, and the term (length of time) of the loan.

Most companies that provide home equity loans will spend time trying to find you the best offer possible based on your credit score. After the lending institution has their best loan offer ready to go they will contact you and provide you all the relevant information. At that point it is just a matter of closing on your home equity loan like any other.

Jason D. Barrett is currently focused on writing informative articles for InfoBriefs.com, child insurance articles for ChildInsure.com, and technology articles for ScoutTechnology.com.