HELOC or Home Equity Loan?

[Anonymous]

I'm looking to consolidate my CC bills and pull out cash for home improvements. My first mortgage has a great low, fixed rate and I only have about 16 more years to pay it off (that's why I don't want to refinance). But my question is, should I go with the HELOC Or a Equity Loan? I have a lot of equity in my home and I'm asking for 150K to be paid back in 20 years. My first mortgage is 109K. My fico score is 726.

[haulingthescoreup]

One potential problem is that one of the credit bureaus (EX? maybe) stubbornly reports HELOCs as revolving credit rather than installment loans. So if you use a good chunk of your HELOC, it's going to look like you have gone berserk with a $150K CL credit card.

You might want to ask your lender how they see their other customers' HELOCs report. I've been told that even when the lender requests that they be posted as mortgages, the CRA won't always comply.

Supposedly installment loans like home equity loans and mortgages don't affect scores all that much, since your monthly payment is fixed, and you don't have a lot of easily available credit tempting you.