By Catherine Reagor, The Republic
Those offers from lenders are starting to arrive in the mail to metro Phoenix homeowners again. The area’s home values have recovered enough for banks to begin offering home equity loans.
The number of home equity loans climbed 20 percent last year compared with 2012, the biggest increase since the housing crash, according to financial research firms Equifax and Moodys. U.S. homeowners signed up to tap more than $92 billion in equity during 2014. Lenders say the upward trend continues this year.
Metro Phoenix’s home values are up more than 65 percent from the crash, and only 20.6 percent, or about 186,500 Valley homeowners, now are underwater, according to real estate research firm CoreLogic.
