How To Find The Right HELOC In Oregon

Today we are in the state of Oregon helping you find the right home equity liner credit in the second position. Let's take a look at the whiteboard. Let me show you my framework on the left hand side. This is your pregame work. This is the additional data that you need to obtain from the bank or acquire yourself in terms of credit score your own personal DTI and figuring out your own loan of value on your property. The rest of the details is really referring to the information that you'll need to acquire from the, from each bank directly. Not every bank is going to display this information on their website, public, publicly. You're going to need to pick up the phone and call. So what this video and this entire series is doing is giving you the framework, giving you the how to, all the pregame steps and it's giving you an idea of what banks I'm looking at, what research I'm doing, how I'm doing my research so that you can basically match that in the state that you're in and see if you can beat what I found already for you. So I'm doing a lot of the legwork in advance giving you the framework. And then on the right hand side of the board here, specifically for the state of Oregon, I picked out some banks that caught my eye with the little information that each bank does provide. Like I said, they're not going to give me everything in terms of what they're looking for in an applicant, but, but they're going to typically provide some details to explain what their HELOC is, how it works and the cost behind it. So I was able to find you 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 banks or 6, yeah, 3, 6 banks in the state of Oregon that caught my eye. Now what I'm going to do is share my screen and just go through each and every bank I found and explain why some didn't make it to the whiteboard and why these ones did make it to the whiteboard. Right. What I'm, what I'm typically looking at. Okay, so here we are starting with Consolidated Community Credit Union was actually the last bank I found found. I was like doing additional research but if we go here to Google just so you can see what I'm typing in, I typically start with credit unions in the state that I'm looking at and I'll type that offer a home equity line of credit. So this way it narrows banks that don't offer HELOCs. I'm not interested in those. I want to strictly focus on credit unions in your State that's offering a home equity line of credit. And in this series we're focusing on the second position heloc. So Consolidated Community Credit Union was the last bank that I found and happens to be like one of the most attractive ones. Okay, so again, when you're paying attention to my framework, one of the things I asked for in the framework is does the bank offer an intra rate? And how is the interest rate calculation determined? Is the home equity line of credit based off of a prime minus, a prime standard or prime plus? So prime minus, meaning today's interest rates are at 6.75%. That's the current prime rate in January 2026 today. So if a bank says, hey, our HELOCs is based off of prime and nothing afterwards, then you know, okay, the lowest interest rate I can get on this HELOC will be whatever prime is 6.75%. So the first thing they show is you get a rate of 4.99% for the first 12 months. So that's an intro rate. They also say, hey, we'll cover your setup fees. So either all or some of your closing costs will be covered. That's a plus. Here we have another plus, no annual fees. We like that. So no, pretty much no cost to get in, no cost to maintain it. Home equity line of credit. And then we continue to read, it says here, including title document searches, cover up to $500. Any closing costs beyond 500 are the responsibility of the borrower. So clearly they're covering some and maybe in some cases it's all of your closing costs. But we'll assume that they cover most of your closing costs. That's very helpful. Then we have statement here. It says interest rate structure once every quarter, five or 15 years based on prime. Currently 6.75% with a maximum of 18% as of 12, 11, 20, 25. That's when interest rates recently decrease. So they updated their website accordingly. So that is very attractive. What we need to get clarity on is this quarter, five or 15 years, if you scroll down, owner occupied variable rate, APR as low as after the intro rate, 6.25%. That's quarterly, meaning it's saying the term of your home equity line of credit is quarterly. So every three months the interest rate can adjust. Right. And then we have a five year where it's saying, okay, it'll be at prime for the next five years is how I'm interpreting it. And then same thing with the 15 year. So this is something where we can call the bank, get a Little more information just so that we fully understand what we're getting into. Another plus is that they have easy access regarding the velocity strategy. Money in, money out, easy access, mobile banking friendly. So definitely made it to the whiteboard. Definitely a bank you want to have on your list. And you can get more clarity here on the HELOC itself. I'm not sure what the draw period is all right for because it says the term. Usually term means the draw period, duration. So I don't often see where it's saying, okay, the term is quarterly. So for how many quarters will my home equity line of credit be revolving for if it's 5 years, 10 years, 15 years? Right, let's figure that out. All in all, it made it to the whiteboard. Continuing on, I found you another bank. Oregon State, Oregon State Credit Union, another pretty attractive bank here they've got a prime. Their interest rate is based off prime. Annual fee is waived in the first year, so there is a annual fee afterwards. Max credit line 400,000. That's pretty attractive. 90% LTV 10 year draw, easy access or mobile banking friendly. So it checks a lot of the boxes. But again you want to call, you want to get all the rest of the details. You know, hey, what's the dti? What's the closing costs? Ask all those questions before you apply and make sure that you become a member at the bank you end up choosing that you want to do business with. Make sure you open up an account first. Right? Open up a checking, open up a savings, become a member. Typically when you do that, you're going to get access to an even better offer. More than likely. Some banks don't even let you apply with them until you're a member. So don't waste your credit score applying at a bank that you're not a member at. Very, very important. So here we have another bank. OCCU didn't make it to the whiteboard simply because I just looked at the rate. I've already found banks that are at a prime or prime minus according to this. Now this might be the case where their rates might actually be 6.75%. Not every bank has updated their site. I'm recording this video on January 7, 2026. Usually it takes about a month, couple weeks after a rate cut has been announced where the bank will update their site. So just going off what they're showing, this looks like prime plus 0.25%. But it could be the case that it's actually based off prime. We don't know. They don't give additional details Wasn't able to see that as I went through everything here it says it again rates vary from 7 to 11% oh never mind actually so rates as of January 5th current apr 9.17 and 9.37 but that is based off their home equity loan this is based off the home equity line of credit this first paragraph and it does say as of 112026 so we can actually rely on this this would be prime plus 0.25% I'm gonna go ahead and ignore them Found another bank Mid Oregon Credit Union didn't get much information that's the only reason why they didn't make it to the whiteboard I see this 80% LTV. I see the mobile banking friendly part it says you gotta call alright to get the other details but still want to show you my research Inroads Credit Union did make it to the whiteboard because they offer a prime minus 0.25% as you can see lowest 6.5% mobile banking friendly they do have an annual fee Their closing costs are between 5 and 1300 dollars but they still make to the whiteboard because of that prime minus that's pretty attractive. Another bank, Cascade Community Credit Union did not make it to the board Go to real estate here, here's why it's prime + 0.5% not attractive compared to what I've already found you. Here's a bank called On Point Community Credit Union. I have clients who use this bank. Not my favorite but it is a bank that some people have used they got this 10 year draw 80% LTV 7 7.5% 7 7.5% they have a first lien between 6 and 6.75% fixed this could be attractive from a first lien position but the second position HELOC I didn't throw it on the board because of that prime plus SELCO Interesting offer they got here by the way Oregon seems to be a very competitive state in terms of more banks offering home equity line of credits with some pretty unique offers so this one's pretty unique I threw it on the board Selco Community Credit Union has a fixed home equity line of credit for six years with the first five years annual fee being waived and you get this 6% rate so that's prime minus 0.75% that's very attractive. Now context, let me give you guys some additional context here. When does it make sense to choose a fixed rate home equity line of credit over a variable rate home equity line of credit I would say my opinion and my experience, I prefer to have a fixed home equity line of credit that is at least 1 to 2% below prime for that three to five year window. That's the typical range. This is definitely out of the ordinary. Six year fixed rate is out of the ordinary. You're not going to see that every day, but you will see two to three years, three to five years, it's a little more common, but even those are kind of rare. And if you can get a rate between 1 to 2% below prime, that's extremely attractive. Because over the next five years, what's the likelihood that rates go below what your fixed rate is? If you do a little bit of a deeper dive to get a better understanding of how interest rates work, and if you just simply Google something like are we in a declining interest rate environment or are we in a increasing interest rate environment? So when we are in a declining interest rate environment, it can be quite attractive to lock in a fixed rate. And when you have already seen rates come down, it can make it even more attractive to say, okay, it's likely that we're going to keep going in this direction. It's 2026. I can probably give myself a head start. Worst case scenario, rates continue to go down. But I already benefited a year to two years in advance. And if I made all the right moves and rates continue to decrease, well, guess what? When my fixed rate expires now, my rate drops even more. Now if here's where it becomes even more advantageous is you lock in a fixed rate in a declining interest rate environment. So let's look at history. Go back a couple of years. The prime interest rate went up as high as 8.5%. 2026, now it's at 6.75%. So it's dropped almost two points over the last year and a half. Right? It was towards the end of 2024 is when we saw our first rate cut and then we saw three rate cuts, if I'm not mistaken, in 2025 and now going into 2026. Depending on where the economy goes, depending on how the administration wants to keep operating, we might likely see more interest rates continue to be reduced. So let's say it continues to go in that direction, but then prime stops at about 6.25% and it just stays there. Okay, you're still at an advantage with your 6% fixed rate home equity line of credit that you locked in from 2026 for the next six years. And then let's say interest rates Reverse and start to go up in the event we switch administration. So keep in mind 2026, and you can do this in any time frame you're looking at as of right now is 2026. Under the current administration, it will last until 2028. So if you do a little research and you look up, okay, what are the top priorities, what are the top agendas for the Trump administration? Boom, boom. Do a little research, okay, there's a big emphasis on tariffs, there's a big emphasis on wanting to reduce interest rates, wanting to make things more affordable. So you look at those top concerns that apply to your financial economy being your home, your home equity line of credit, interest rates, how you're borrowing, and we can draw a healthy hypothesis, an assumption, and say, okay, for at least the next two years, 2026, 2028, we'll likely see more rates decrease. That's been the trend so far in this current administration. 2028 hits, if it flips from Republican to Democrat, then we might see interest rates go up. Potentially. That's something you can keep in mind. Well, guess what? That would be in your favor anyways. It wouldn't harm you that you took the fixed rate home equity line of credit at the 6% to a increasing interest rate environment. If we remain under a Republican administration going into 2028, that's another four consistent years compared to the previous four consistent years. What is the likelihood that if we go from Republican administration to another Republican administration, what's the likelihood that the agendas radically change? Very unlikely. Very unlikely. So that gives you the space to make that decision, to say, yep, you know what, I'm going to go with this fixed rate option for the next six years. Plus, you factor in how long is it going to take you to become debt free with all the things you're looking to accelerate, looking to pay off. And if you have a window of five to seven years, you're giving yourself like a guarantee with a 6% home equity line of credit rate, and you look at all your other debts that are higher than 6%, let's just say car loans, student loans, personal loans, maybe even your home loan, you put yourself in a very, very advantageous position for the next six years. So there's a lot of pros. The only time it's a con, I would say, to lock in a fixed rate home equity line of credit is when the fixed rate is higher than prime. Currently, no matter what environment we're in, if it's higher than prime, that's not attractive. And if we're in a, let's say you're in this declining interest rate environment. So let's go back to 2018, 2019, 2020. Interest rates were extremely low. Okay, they were, they were really low. If you locked in a fixed rate at that point, you did amazing. Congratulations. Because you were able to avoid the interest hike in that, in that event. So then let's say we're now at all time highs. Fast forward 2023, a little bit of 2024. So it's like mostly 22, 2023. We're at very, very high interest rates. You agree? We were hitting seven and a half, then went to eight and went to 8.25, eight and a half. I think it stopped right on eight and a half percent. If you locked in a fixed rate, even if it was a half a point below prime or right at prime, that would have been a bad move. Because if you're not paying attention to what's going on in the United States, if you're not paying attention to the election cycles and how that has an effect on your money, then you definitely drop the ball. Because if you saw, okay, we're under a Democratic administration, we saw 2024 election where we were current from 2020 right to 2024, we're under a Democratic administration, right. And rates went up. So if you weren't paying attention and boom, Trump gets elected, you lock in a fixed rate at 8 and a half percent or 8, say 8%. You lock in a fixed rate for five, six years. You screwed up because within a year and a half we saw that eight and a half boom drop all the way down to now 6.75%. You're hurting bad. Sitting at that eight and a half percent rate. If you're that person, you're hurting bad. It's absolutely worth getting out of that. Even if it potentially may come with some costs, it's going to be absolutely worth coming out of that. Especially if I can go from eight and a half and you're telling me I could lock in a six. Oh my goodness, that's two and a half points decreased. Okay, so keep that in mind. Very, very important. That's when it makes sense to lock in a fixed rate home equity line of credit. There's a lot scenarios where it does make sense and where it may not make sense is if again, that scenario about being in a high interest rate environment and then locking something in, in a high interest rate environment, despite going to a decreasing, you almost want to wait. That's the key. You, you Want to wait a little bit, allow the new administration to come in and look what happened. It flipped Democrat to Republican and it took a little time, but then we started seeing rate cut, rate cut, rate cut, rate cut, rate cut. So you want to pay attention to that where it's like, okay, now we're seeing offers like this across the country that are popping up, that were once extremely rare are becoming a little more common now, a little more attractive. And it's going to, Is this going to be amazing for the person that lives in Oregon that does their pregame work that follows the framework that potentially locks in with Selco community and makes that decision and take the next six years. Take a bet, you've got the rest of this administration, you got one more to go in your fixed period. And if you're thinking we're likely going to stay this way under a Republican administration, or do you think it's going to flip back to Democrat come 2028, then that's another way you can really make that decision. So that definitely made it to the board and I believe the draw period. Yeah. Okay, so it's between five and 15 years. All right, so not the, if it's as short as five years, not the best, but then that wouldn't make sense. Definitely. If it's a six year fixed heloc, it's definitely going to be longer than six years. In terms of, in terms of the draw, we have no application or origination fees. Closing costs are paid by Selco. So there's a big possibility here a lot of your closing cost gets covered, which is pretty cool. Moving on. We have Maps Credit Union didn't make it to the board. We got, they got, let me see. Wait, why didn't I put them on the board? Let's hold on. So I have a couple of different types of HELOCs here. 10 year draw, 85% LTV line of credit, no app fee, up to 500k, between six and a half percent and 9%. So that would be prime minus 0.25. And then okay, so a home equity master line would be principal and interest payments. Home equity master line, interest only is obviously interest only. Payments you can actually get a little bit. Oh no, it's the same 500k. So 7% fixed. This wouldn't be as attractive. See if you were to lock in with this bank 7% which is 0.25% above prime, you lock that in for five years, that's not smart because why we're still in a declining interest rate environment. You don't want to lock in a fixed rate above prime while rates are going down because then you don't benefit, you miss out. But if you can get something like Selco 6% and there's. And prime is still at 6.75, there's still a ways to go before it ever gets to 6%. All right, so keep that in mind. I'm actually gonna throw maps on the board since I missed them. But they're, they're, it's worth it. They're definitely worth mentioning. So Maps Credit union with the six and a half to nine percent. You just have to find out, okay, how do I get, what do I need to have to be considered at the 6.5% because that's prime minus 0.25. That's important. We want to find that out. It is attractive that they do a 500k max credit line. They're just flat out sharing that. Here's the next bank in bold Credit Union. 90% 6.99. So that's above prime. I immediately ignored them as I kept going. We got rogue. Rogue is 6.24. That was immediately, you know, thrown on the board. That's basically minus point five percent. And we got no annual fees. Didn't get much information after that, but definitely threw them on the board. Then we got four, four writ. Credit Union did not make it to the board simply because they didn't have enough information. They have a home equity loan at this 6.48% but as you can see, they didn't show. What about the prime line? Home equity line of credit? Yeah, it takes me to the same page. Looks like you can get as much as 600k. They'll cover some closing costs. So there's some attraction here. But I just didn't put them on the board simply because I wasn't getting the information that I wanted. If we keep looking here, see if it gives it away. 80% LTV. This is again going off the home equity loan. Okay. Yeah. So prime line home equity line of credit is based on prime plus a margin. And then your margin is based on your credit worthiness. It's only a seven year draw period. So not attractive. True West. I would throw them on the board because of this one detail. You can get up to $750,000 credit line borrowing up to 75% LTV. 10 year interest only payments. I just don't have enough data. But I do want to mention it does say based on index rate plus a margin probably because of how much equity they're able to lend on. So if you get a.5 plus percent margin, you'd be at 7.27%. I mean it's not horrible, but is it worth it to you to have that much credit limit? If you have that available in your home and if so, then you're going to want to look at Maps Credit Union because they offer 500. You want to look at Oregon because they offer 400k. You're going to want to look at. Maybe Selco can help you. So before you just say yes, make sure you do your little comparison. Peak Credit Union Honorable mention. They're at prime. Just prime, straight 80%. Last bank is Central Willemite Willamette Credit Union. They have this 4.99 for six months but then they really bump you says seven and a half percent. So that's prime plus 0.75. That even though I get a nice 4.9 intro. As you saw earlier, Consolidated Credit Union was also doing 4.99 but for 12 months. Okay, so all in all, my top picks, I like Consolidated Community Credit Union, I like Selco, and I like Rogue. All of these banks are either at a prime prime minus with intra rates with no annual fees, with very little closing costs, in some cases covering all my closing costs. So you really can't go wrong with the selection that I've given you here. If you live in the state of Oregon, but you still want to make sure you do this, get all this done, make sure you know your credit score, make sure you know what your DTI is. Make sure you're asking them what the DTI needs to be to get the best rate. What are the LTV options? If I request a 90% or more LTV rate, does that increase my interest rate calculation? In many cases, the answer is yes. So the lower the LTV that you borrow, typically the lower your rate offer will be when you combine that with your DTI and your credit score. Pay attention to closing costs and fees. Take a look at that draw period. I prefer to have 10 to 20 years. If it's only going to be five to seven. Let's just make sure like, okay, let's run the math on your own numbers and say, okay, will we be out of debt by then or would we have accomplished what we're trying to accomplish? Not everyone's trying to be completely debt free, but many of the people on this channel are either trying to be completely debt free or pay off the vast majority of their debt. Except for their mortgage for the most part. If that's the case. Let's run the timeline and see if you're going to go with a five year draw. Will we have everything eliminated by them? Because what I don't want is, is for you to have that draw period expired. Now you go to a fixed amortized rate. Now you're fighting with no liquidity and making, trying to make extra payments to pay that down. Now keep in mind you're approaching your draw period. You can always call to renew and it may require going through underwriting all over again, running your credit all over again. But it's absolutely worth it if it means extending the draw period another five years if you're trying to do leverage. So keep in mind that as well, many of you are trying to get out of debt and some of you are saying, hmm, now that I've mastered leveraging debt to pay off debt and saving money in cash flow and interest in the process, what does it look like if I were to leverage debt to actually create more income? The ROI on that is night and day when comparing to paying off debt. Typically it's like night and day, you know, the potential to leverage debt to earn double digit returns, cash flow on top of cash flow plus equity, depending on the asset or the business that comes with it with the investment, that can open up a lot of opportunity there. So being able to have a healthy draw period, 10 years or longer, allows for you to not only just get out of debt, but also invest with that capital to your advantage to almost catch up. Because those of you who are spending a lot of your time getting out of debt, you're not exactly investing as much money as you want or saving as much money as you want. So if you dedicate the next five to seven years getting out of debt and you're close to retirement now, you're going to feel like you're maybe missing out or your path to retirement might be slightly delayed. But it depends. There's many cases, and I deal with a lot of them where it's like, no, it absolutely makes sense to eliminate all this debt because you can guarantee yourself retirement in the next 10 years if it takes the next 5 years, get rid of all this debt, you guarantee yourself all this cash flow recovery and, and then the last five years, you can dedicate that to, to investing and creating more cash flow, setting up the life that you actually desire. So with that being said, that's the state of Oregon today. We're going to continue in this series helping you find the right home equity line of credit. In the second position, my name is Denzel Rodriguez, your personal finance geek of the 21st century. I do coaching consultation calls. You can click the links below to either get a hold of some of my partners and or myself and I will help you on a one to one basis or you can join one of my courses. One of my and in my courses I do live workshops and live financial coaching, things like that. So that's a very inexpensive way to get a hold of me, get my attention and ask questions and hold yourself accountable. So with that being said, have a wonderful day, God bless and we'll be talking soon. Bye now.