How To Find The Right HELOC in Michigan

Welcome students. Denzel here, your personal finance geek of the 21st century. And today we are continuing our series on how to find the right home equity line of credit in the second position. We are going to be covering the state of Michigan today. With that being said, my quick analysis based on my research so far over the state of Michigan, a little bit tough. Not as much competition going on, unfortunately, but I was able to find you some pretty decent banks. So if you live in the state of Michigan and you're searching for a home equity line of credit, you came to the right place. All right, before you apply for that home equity line of credit, please do the pregame work here on the left hand side of the board. This is your framework to evaluate the best tools that banks offer as it pertains to home equity line of credit. Specifically in the second position. This framework right here during this entire series has not changed. And We've covered almost 20 plus states already and this framework hasn't changed. I want to see you have a credit score of at least 720 or higher prior to applying. I'd like to see your DTI at about 30% or less, no more than 40, 45%. That's when you get hit with the higher rates or they'll, they'll add more. They'll do a margin plus on you. Even if a bank is offering a prime rate or prime minus, if your credit score doesn't match, you don't get that rate. So it's really, really important to set yourself up in advance. LTV options. Typically you're going to see 70 to 90%. Some banks go as high as 95 to 100%. Keep in mind, if you stay within the 70 to 80% or less range, you're going to typically get the best rate and incentive closing costs. I like to see that at zero or low, $500 or less. I often like to acquire an intra rate whenever I can. Six to 12 months. Some banks go as high as three to five years fixed and that range lately has been as low as 0% to as high as like 6 and a half. So a nice healthy range is between 1.99 and 5.99. In terms of the interest rate calculation, how is your HELOC being determined? Like how. What is the rate being based off of? All of them are based off prime. And you want in the terms when you're reading, you want your HELOC to be based off of prime, which today is 7.25% in 2025 or prime minus so if the rate is 7% in 2026 and you're at a prime minus, your rate would be maybe 6.75 or 6.5. The largest prime minus rate I've seen is, is an entire percentage point. So 1% that's typically like the highest. But generally you're going to see prime minus 0.25. Prime minus 0.5% is what is more common. So if I can get an intro rate for say 12 months at 5% and then go to prime minus 0.2, 5.5, with a great credit score, good DTI position, 80% or less, you're really setting yourself up for the best tool for you to consolidate a lot of your high interest debt. Save a ton of money on interest, stay liquid in the process the draw period. Typically you're going to see 10 years, some go as high as 20. The lowest is like five years. It's really, really important. Even if you have a great credit score and your DTI is where it needs to be and you understand this part, still open up a checking and savings with that bank before you apply, become a member with them. A lot of these banks that I'm looking for, you require membership anyways. So set yourself up, move your banking over to that bank that you want to do business with. Move your paychecks over, move your bill pay over so that when you activate the heloc, you're going to work right away on your debt. Mobile banking is also a very valuable resource. It increases velocity. When you're doing the strategy, being able to log into your phone and simply make a transfer right from your phone instantly from the HELOC to the checking account. Checking account to the HELOC is extremely valuable. If you're someone that's doing the strategy and you bank with bank of America and you have your HELOC at a small credit union, you're costing yourself dollars per day in interest. Those dollars end up being 50 to $100, maybe every single month ends up being say $1,000 in interest that you could have saved by just simply ending that relationship with bank of America, moving your business fully over to the credit union that you're going to have your debt tool at. So that's we're talking so much money in savings just by positioning dollars where they need to be. So that's extremely important and making sure that that bank does have a mobile app, they have an online portal. They you're able to access your money via digital online banking and not just writing checks. Last is your payment Calculation. Is it a interest only HELOC or is it a principal and interest heloc? Typically, with the principal and interest HELOC option, you'll typically get a better rate. Typically some banks will have no difference. There'll be no incentive to go interest only or principal and interest. If that's the case, you decide which one you want to go to. Typically I lean more toward principal and interest. It encourages the individual that's doing the strategy to remember to pay off your heloc. Right. When you make a chunk, you want to pay it down, reuse it again, pay down, reuse it again. You don't want to borrow money from your HELOC and treat it like a loan where you just make a regular payment here or there. No, we want to be dramatically accelerating that line as quickly as possible. So that's, that's really important. I found you 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Banks so far in the state of Michigan that qualify for the whiteboard. In this context, again, the competition isn't all that great. But we're going to go bank by bank. Share with you my screen and let's begin. So we have Adventure Credit Union that offers a home equity line of credit, but as you can see, the rate only goes as low as 7.5%. That's not attractive. Don't get confused by this. Home equity loan 6.49. That's not what we're looking at. So their HELOC product already at a disadvantage. So I skip over that. Come on. Coming over to Michigan Schools and Government Credit Union, they have home equity line of credit. Notice how they have an interest only option and then they have a home equity line of credit option. So this is implying, this is principal interest. This is interest only at 80%. 7.25, 80%, 7.25%. So there's no difference on their 80% LTV option. Notice how on their 90% LTV option, 8.25 versus 8%. So that little 0.25 difference, just, just knowing that alone saves you money. So you'd be better off going with the principal and interest option. So the University of Michigan made it to the whiteboard. It's standard prime 10 year draw, goes as high as 90 plus percent. But you would stick to the 80. Oh no, I'm actually reading this wrong. So this is. No, this didn't make it to the board. Michigan Schools and Government Credit Union. No, I did not put this on the board. We'll come over here to Community Financial Credit Union which did make it to the Board and they're doing a prime minus. So 7% minimum credit line, 25,080% LTV. Very similar to the other bank. And the only thing I don't love is this right here. Draw periods only five years. So if you were to use this bank, you're in Michigan, let's say you go with the five year draw. But let's say we're projected to get out of debt in eight years. We would simply renew this product. We would look and see if they have any fees to renew or if we have to apply all over again. If that's the case, that's an opportunity to shop around and see what other banks might be competing for your business. So that was community, this is University of Michigan Credit Union which also was at a prime rate. So the reason why I put this on the board and not this bank is due to the other benefits that come with the HELOC. So for example 10 year draw, the other bank was a 10 year draw, but we got this right here. Completely fee free, no app, no recording fees, no credit report fee, no closing fee, no annual fee. The other bank did have some closing costs. Looks like there's a $75 annual fee and third party fee says paid by the bank. But there might says up to $500. So if your closing cost is 1,000, maybe they cover the 500. Right. But you're still coming out of pocket to get that product versus this bank was not the case. Plus University, Michigan schools and government may imply that you have to be working in the government or in the school system to even bank with this bank. So keep that in mind. Sometimes depending on your career might get you a behind the door kind of deal. So an off off market deal, call it like they're not going to promote it, sometimes you will get better deals. So don't throw that off your list. If you do work for the government or you do work inside the school system, maybe you get a discount that we're just not seeing. So just keep that in mind. But University of Michigan Credit Union did make it to the whiteboard. Now we have credit union, one home equity line of credit immediately disqualified. The rate is as low as 8.25, 8.24 so that's literally prime plus a whole point not attractive. LMCU bank immediately qualifies prime minus 0.25%. So you're going to be as low as 6.99. Don't know what the draw period is. Didn't say that on here, but we have no app fees no annual fees there says closing costs paid by the borrower. So there is some closing costs could be quite expensive. So keep that in mind. Keep an eye out for that. But it still made it to the board simply because of that prime minus offer. So I'm not upset with that. Then we have Michigan First Credit Union also offering a heloc. But look immediately disqualified. We're talking prime plus 1.5% not attractive. So we want to avoid that. And then if you went with the interest only look it's even more two points above prime. So not attractive. Next you have Genesis made it to the board immediately as you can see prime minus 0.257% 80% LTV. Looks like there is some closing cost but much lower. And what we've seen it looks like they go up to 400,000 max potentially. So that's pretty attractive. You do have to have a really good credit score.740 or higher but worth your time compared to the other options in the state of Michigan. Here's another bank. LOC Credit Union is the only bank I found in the state of Michigan in my research so far that is doing an intro rate of 4.99% for the first nine months. 80% LTV 250k max draw period 10 years. So all those are great mobile banking friendly. That's that's meeting all checking all the boxes until we get right about here home equity line of credit rates. Unfortunately it's prime plus 0.25% but in comparison to all of the other banks we've seen so far, that's actually still attractive. So if I can get that 4.99 for nine months and then be at a prime minus prime plus only 0.25% I'm not terribly upset about that. Looks like the credit line only goes up to about 150,000. It would be interesting to know if because it does say first lien right here. It would be nice and this just requires just some clarity like could this apply to the second lien but position. Now if you're somebody with a paid off home in the state of Michigan, you automatically would be in the first lien position on on the heloc. So you would benefit from prime minus and the intro rate and a higher credit line amount that's pretty attractive. So that didn't make it to the board. And then I kept doing some more research, see what else I could find. This was Michigan United Credit Union but wasn't really giving anyone any information other than there's a seven year Draw period. I click on loan rates and let's see. Oh, Here we go. 1.99 intra rate until July of 2026. So that's like eight months, something like that. Okay, your margin rate, credit history plus okay, minimum initial. So they have an initial draw of 20,000. They go to a max of 150 and it's prime plus a margin. But we don't know what that margin is. Then it says no fees in most cases. So probably low closing costs. I think it's worth mentioning. We would still need to get more information. But 1.99 is also pretty attractive. If it's prime plus 0.25% then that's about equal to this bank, the LLC bank. Last bank was Security Credit Union. I looked up and is, you know, prime standard, 7.25%. Okay, so let's come back, let's take a look at our top picks. Top picks. So we have Community, LMCU and Genesis all doing prime minus 0.25, all 80% LTV, all mobile banking friendly. LMCU was the most clear on no annual fee, no app fee. And I'll go back to see if there was closing costs associated with lmcu. Let's see. Oh yeah, LMCU actually might have higher closing costs, but that's only if you go up to 500k on their home equity line of credit. Genesis does have low closing costs, higher credit score required. Community had the five year draw. So I'm between LMCU and Genesis as my top two banks that I would go after. Number two would actually be the Lock Credit Union. That 4.99 is pretty attractive. And then just as an honorable mention, we'll throw Michigan United Credit Union. They had that 1.99 intro offer and I believe 10 year draw. If we could get more information, pretty much the max was 150k. But I would compare Michigan United to the LLC Credit Union. Obviously Michigan has a better intro rate, but take a look at closing costs. Take, you know, this one does 250k max 10 year draw. Let's find out the additional information needed from Michigan in order to choose them over LLC Credit Union. But those are my top picks for the state of Michigan. I encourage you to do your own research on top of the research I've done. Especially if you're a resident of Michigan, you're probably going to have more banks pop up for you than myself. All right, so please do that. And then if you can find a bank that competes with what I have here on the whiteboard, Comment below so that you can help the next person that's doing research that will eventually come across this video. With that being said, my name is Denzel Rodriguez. You're personal finance geek of the 21st century. I do additional financial coaching one to one that you can sign up for below where you can evaluate, you can do the pregame work, all this DIY stuff, you can handle that. But then when you're ready to pull the trigger, you can have a second set of eyes look at your entire debt situation and see what moves need to be made. And then when you have the tool in in place. Accountability. The number one thing that separates success and failure for most people is accountability. It's not just knowing the information, but it's how do you apply it and how do you be held accountable where you apply that information in a reasonable time frame. Because let's say you learn everything from me with my videos and you start implementing the information, but you wait a year before you actually implement what you've been learning. So then when you go to do it, you're probably not going to be as good because you learned it a year ago, you didn't start actually implementing it to a year later and now your results are kind of mediocre and you're just not a good representation of, of that particular financial strategy versus somebody else that watches my videos, builds trust, applies the information immediately. You're going to go do the research according to the framework I've given you. Then we jump on a call together. You invest in yourself now you're being held accountable. Results happen in say 30, 60, 90 days. You start to see the shift occur in your life. So the amount of money you invested in yourself versus the results you get are astronomically different. Different. And that's amazing. I love to see that. And I will let you know that by the end of the year I'm going to be closing out my one to one coaching services. So send me an email directly, go to my website, reach out. If you're interested in working with me on a lifetime basis, I'm taking on about 35 more families. I started with 50 as I started announcing this. As we get closer and closer to the end of the year, that offer will go away by December 31, midnight or sooner if I sell out. Okay, so I'm only taking on 35 more families. If you're somebody that's like I've been watching you for years, I've been applying, I've been doing the work, I'm ready to take it to the next level. Get ready to go on a 10, 20, 30, 40 year run in not only your personal finances, but also your personal development overall. Your faith, your health, your fitness. Also generational wealth. How do we pass on everything we're learning to the next generation that they are inspired to do it? They're not just, they don't feel like obligated to like, they're inspired. They want to carry the legacy of mom and dad in such a unique way and preserve wealth. How do we set these systems up? It's going to take time. It can take an entire generation to not only just figure it out, but apply it and you be the fruit of what you're building and doing it for a prolonged period of time. Where your heirs are inspired by your ambition, tenacity, your, your drive, your purpose, your passion, your love, your empathy, all of that. Let's have some fun. I'm excited. So again, getting ready to close out the end of the year. You can email me directly, there's payment plans available, you can pay in full, you get an incentive or you can put a deposit down to hold your spot. Very flexible in that, in that regard. Afterwards. Going into the new year, I recently partnered with another content creator and another community called the Increase Academy and that's hosted by Travis Peters. Phenomenal dude and phenomenal community. Moving forward, I'm going to be providing my services in that community because it's faith and finances all coming together. So it's the full picture where we're able to tap into the natural, logical strategies that work and also tap into supernatural increase over your life. Blessings over your life. On top of the good works that you're doing. Imagine getting blessed supernaturally over your finances and you're just like, where did this extra 10 grand come from? Where did this extra $500 come from? Just these additional blessings on top of everything we're doing and that just builds a really, really strong foundation. So I'm gonna let you go. Enjoy the rest of your evening. God bless and we'll be talking soon. Bye now.