Читать книгу Flipping Houses For Dummies - Ralph R. Roberts - Страница 68

Your home is more than just a place to live — it’s an investment, perhaps the best-performing investment you have (or the worst, if property values in your area have dropped dramatically). As you pay down the principal on the mortgage, equity in the home grows (assuming that the house appreciates). Equity is your home’s net worth — if you sold the home today and paid off the mortgage, equity is the money you would stuff in your pocket.

You don’t have to sell your home to pocket the equity. By refinancing the home or taking out a home equity loan, you can unleash the equity and use it (or a portion of it) as investment capital to finance your house flipping venture. I cover both these options, along with the risks of unleashing equity in your home, in the following sections. Further on in this chapter, I show you how to work with banks and other lending institutions to unlock the equity in your home.

You don’t have to tap into the equity in your home to flip houses. Tapping into your equity can place your primary residence at risk, and if you and your spouse both sign the loan documents, you’re both at risk. If you’re uncomfortable placing your home and other possessions at risk, consider borrowing money from a private lender instead; see the later section “Borrowing from a private (hard money) lender.”