How to grow a successful

home equity lending business

Ready to learn more about ICE's end-to-end home equity solutions?

Home equity lending is gaining momentum, with the 2025 ICE Borrower Insights Survey indicating that nearly a quarter of respondents are considering a home equity loan or home equity line of credit (HELOC) within the next year.

When you're unsure whether to use a traditional appraisal, BPO, or AVM, technology can help guide the decision. It evaluates property data and local market conditions to determine the level of effort needed and recommends the most suitable valuation method for a given property.

This site explores how lenders can more easily identify leads, lower origination costs, and mitigate risk to support the success of their home equity lending business.

The rise in home equity

4% Increase YoY

$17.6T tappable equity as of 2Q 2025

≈ 48 million

mortgage holders

Average $212,000

available per homeowner

According to the June 2025 ICE Mortgage Monitor, U.S. mortgage holders entered Q2 with a record $17.6 trillion in total equity, including $11.5 trillion in readily accessible funds - all while maintaining a solid 20% equity cushion.

With 48 million mortgage holders eligible to tap into their equity and an average $212,000 available per homeowner, the demand for home equity loans and HELOCs presents a significant cross-selling and growth opportunity. Additionally, recent declines in HELOC interest rates have made these financing options more attractive to borrowers.

Can you identify home equity opportunities in your portfolio?

The ability to identify high-propensity opportunities and establish effective customer engagement starts with data-driven insights.

ICE offers:

Public records, market data and property information that can be leveraged with your customer data to identify homeowners with sufficient equity, enabling more targeted outreach.
Powerful valuation models that can help capture leads early in the customer journey.
Marketing automation that allow for personalized campaigns that increase engagement and conversion.
Customer-facing apps that display personalized home equity offers to enhance the user experience and convert leads.

In the 2025 ICE Borrower Insights Survey, homeowners were asked if they were aware of how much equity they had in their home. More than ¾ of borrowers said they either probably, or definitely, were aware of the amount of equity they had accrued in their property.

The study also concluded that roughly a quarter of borrowers said that they were considering a home equity loan or home equity line of credit in the next year.

Homebuyers are interested

2025 saw largest Q1 second lien equity withdrawal volume in 17 years

Earlier this year, mortgage lenders withdrew nearly $25 billion in equity through second lien lines of credit (LOCs), representing a 22% increase compared to the same period last year. This marks the highest Q1 volume for second lien equity withdrawals since 2008. Given the continued downward trend in HELOC rate offerings, this pattern suggests that even greater equity withdrawal activity may be on the horizon.

Optimize home equity originations

Is your technology able to support home equity lending when rates drop?

To optimize efficiency and reduce costs in the loan origination process, lenders should prioritize their platform to be able to recapture loans when rates become more attractive.

ICE offers:

Automation, digital APIs, and lights-out processing help reduce manual effort across loan operations. By streamlining workflows, your team can focus more on activities that drive growth and deliver meaningful borrower experiences.

Online document reviews and integrated eClose solutions significantly enhance the mortgage experience for borrowers by helping to reduce errors and last-minute surprises. This keeps the loan on track while delivering transparency and trust.

Offering personalized offers, such as home equity loans, is an important part of a lender’s engagement strategy. Managing both first mortgages and home equity loans on a single system not only gives you the insight to help strengthen customer loyalty, but it can also reduce risk and operational redundancies.

Expedite the property valuation process

Automated Valuation Models (AVMs) are an effective way to reduce origination expenses and streamline home equity lending.

When unsure of which valuation method to use – traditional appraisal, BPO or AVM – technology is available that analyzes property data and local market conditions to evaluate the level of effort needed to provide a credible property value and recommend the appropriate valuation method for a given property.

Additionally, to help accelerate turn times and reduce appraisal costs, lenders can offer a remote valuation solution to their borrowers for uploading time-stamped, GPS tracked property photos and verifying data to help accurately determine the property’s condition and value.

Similar to the advantages of originating your home equity loans on the same platform as your first mortgages, there are operational benefits to applying the same approach to servicing.

By consolidating all residential real estate-secured products onto one system, servicers can reduce IT complexity, mitigate risk, address regulatory requirements and help lower overall operating costs.

Among survey respondents who use a mortgage servicing app:

  • 64% view their mortgage payment
  • 52% check their outstanding balance
  • 37% monitor their home equity
  • 21% explore ways to leverage that equity

Customer communication

Lenders can protect their existing portfolios, increase customer satisfaction and grow opportunities by keeping the lines of communication open with borrowers. User-friendly self-service apps are available to keep homeowners engaged and informed with easy access to their loan balances, detailed loan information, home value/equity, payment options, and direct interaction with their service.

Boost efficiency in servicing

Effective risk management requires proactive monitoring using proven data and analytic solutions

Tools such as business intelligence play a crucial role in providing real-time insights into loan system data. Couple this data with up-to-date rates, market trends, property valuations, and property/public records to gain a complete picture of the borrower and the property – helping to avoid portfolio risk.

Monitor portfolio changes with advanced analytics

ICE’s end-to-end home equity solutions

home-equity-lending

Deliver a seamless workflow experience to help homeowners apply for a home equity loan easily

ICE’s end-to-end technology platform helps lenders grow their home equity business through a single, connected workflow that integrates data and intelligent automation to capitalize on opportunities, mitigate risk and keep customers engaged.

Customer engagement

Home valuation

Loan application

Loan origination

Closing and post-closing

Servicing

ICE is helping lenders grow their home equity business

Ready to learn more?

We’d appreciate the opportunity to discuss how our integrated, end-to-end solutions can help you maximize your home equity business.

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