Lenders freeze home-equity credit

In the latest aftershock from the housing crash, lenders are scaling back home-equity credit lines. It’s a move that affects all homeowners — those with good and bad credit alike. Paul Owers, a real estate reporter at the South Florida "Sun-Sentinel," explains.

Owers says that lenders of home equity credit lines, which are second mortages, get little or nothing back if a house falls into foreclosure: "So banks are feeling at risk. So what they’re doing is, as properties fall in value, they are freezing or reducing the lines of credit that their borrowers have."

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