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You Can Use Your Home Equity to Do…That?

3 min read
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By Hometap TeamUpdated on August 27, 2025

Buying a home has its obvious rewards. Maybe less obvious are the myriad ways to tap into the equity you’ve built to fund your goals.

There are essentially two ways to tap into your equity: borrowing or sharing.

Homeowners can borrow against their equity via a home equity loan or a home equity line of credit (HELOC). However, these financing options do have a few drawbacks.

Alternatively, home equity investments provide homeowners the flexibility to invest their wealth in more areas of their lives—not just in their homes. Hometap Investments offer no monthly payments.

Find out what homeowners’ biggest financial goals are for 2022 in our free Homeowner Report.

Whether you opt for a home equity loan, HELOC, or Hometap Investment, here are four ways you can use that wealth to do what you really want.

1. Consolidate debt

Credit card debt weighs heavily on many Americans with average interest rates at 15%. That’s why a home equity loan with interest rates as low as 5% is so attractive. Use funds from your home equity loan to consolidate that credit card debt and significantly improve your financial posture.

Read 5 Tips for Consolidating Credit Card Debt >>

2. Pay for school

The cost of education has skyrocketed. But investing in your education or your children’s education provides lifelong returns. Private education loans may seem like a solid bet but they often have higher interest rates than a home equity loan. Plus, you can use your home equity funds to pay for college or offset the burden of student debt.

How to Use Your Home Equity to Get out of Student Loan Hell>>

3. Renovate your home

Build your dream kitchen. Renovate the unfinished basement. Add that party patio you’ve wanted. Home improvements are like a double rainbow. Not only do they provide instant gratification to the present homeowner but also that remodel can result in a profit when you sell, according to LendingTree.

4. Buy a second home

If you’re excited to add property to your portfolio, tapping into your home equity makes a lot of sense. Whether you’re considering a vacation home or investment property, home equity loans have lower rates comparatively to other types of loans like a second mortgage. As with any investment, you should familiarize yourself with the pros and cons of using your home equity to fund a second home.

What’s the Difference Between Financing a Vacation Home Versus an Investment Property?>>

Invest in You

Why wait to sell your home to access the equity you’ve earned? Accessing your home equity now allows you to invest in your present and future happiness, whether that’s achieving your financial goals faster or realizing a life goal that can also help improve your financial future.

Tap into your equity with no monthly payments. See if you prequalify for a Hometap investment in less than 30 seconds.

You should know

We do our best to make sure that the information in this post is as accurate as possible as of the date it is published, but things change quickly sometimes. Hometap does not endorse or monitor any linked websites. Individual situations differ, so consult your own finance, tax or legal professional to determine what makes sense for you.

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Hometap Team
The team here at Hometap is made up of a diverse group of finance professionals with a wide array of backgrounds and expertise, including mortgage loan processing, banking, real estate, and entrepreneurship. But most importantly, we're homeowners on a mission to make every stage of homeownership less stressful.

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The Hometap family of companies utilizes Hometap Equity Partners, LLC and Hometap Homeownership Solutions, LLC to provide Hometap Home Equity Investments (HEI or HEIs). Each entity has the ability to enter into a HEI directly with the consumer:

Hometap Equity Partners, LLC dba Hometap. NMLS ID# 2467867 NMLS Consumer Access 361 Newbury St, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02115

Hometap Homeownership Solutions, LLC dba Hometap. NMLS ID# 2819930 NMLS Consumer Access 361 Newbury St, Office 450, Boston, MA 02115

Hometap Real Estate Equity Partners, Inc. holds real estate brokerage licenses in certain states. California DRE #02191883

A Hometap HEI has a ten (10) year term, during which no monthly or recurring payments are required. Hometap records a lien against the property, in the form of a mortgage or deed of trust, to secure its interest. You may choose to settle the Investment at any time during the term without incurring any penalties by exercising an Owner Repurchase. If you do not settle the HEI by the expiration of the term, your Hometap HEI provider may exercise its right to acquire a percent ownership interest in the property and then work with you to sell the property. You may contact either Hometap entity at hello@hometap.com (for prospective or current applicants) or homeowners@hometap.com (for homeowners with an active HEI) for more information. Eligibility criteria are subject to change. For current criteria, please contact your Hometap HEI provider at (855) 223-3144 or visit www.hometap.com/faqs

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