I Needed Cash From My Home Equity Without Refinancing So I Tried Everything

I had over $180K in home equity just sitting there doing nothing. Kitchen was falling apart. Had $40K in credit card debt from a business move that went sideways. The money to fix everything was literally locked inside my house.

Problem was I have a 4.4% mortgage rate and I was not about to give that up. Not in this market. Refinancing would bump me to 6.5% or higher and that’s hundreds of dollars extra every month for the next 25 years. No way.

So I spent three weeks going through every option. HELOCs. Home equity loans. Cash out refis. And then I found something I’d never heard of before called an equity sharing agreement.

That last one is the one I went with. And it wasn’t even close.

This Is What Made Me Stop Looking

Every lender I talked to wanted to charge me $800 to $1,200+ a month just to access my own equity. Then a friend in mortgage lending told me about Unison. They do something completely different.

Unison gives you cash from your home equity. No loan. No debt. No interest. And zero monthly payments. You don’t pay anything until you sell your home or until the 30 year term ends. In exchange they take a share of your home’s future appreciation.

Read that again. Zero monthly payments.

When I saw that I honestly thought there had to be a catch. So I dug in. I checked my eligibility in about 2 minutes. No SSN. No credit pull. And then I spent another two weeks reading everything I could find about how it actually works before I committed.

Why I Didn’t Go With Anything Else

Cash out refinance: Would’ve killed my 4.4% rate. Replaced it with 6.5%+. That’s hundreds more per month for the life of the loan. Immediate no.

HELOC: Variable rate starting at 8.5% from the lenders I talked to. Payments on $80K would’ve been over $1,050 a month. And the rate can climb higher next year. I don’t like that gamble.

Home equity loan: My bank offered 8.9% fixed. Almost a thousand bucks a month on $80K for 10 years. It was the best traditional option I found and it still would’ve crushed my budget.

All three of them are debt. All three add a monthly payment. All three charge interest. Unison does none of that.

How Unison Actually Works

It’s not a loan. It’s an equity sharing agreement. Unison invests in your home alongside you. They give you cash now (up to 15% of your home’s value) and in return they get a share of how much your home goes up in value over time.

When I sell my home or when the 30 year term ends I pay back the original amount plus Unison’s share of the appreciation. If my home goes up a lot they do well. If it doesn’t go up much their share is smaller. And after 5 years if it goes down they actually share in the loss too.

Meanwhile I make zero monthly payments. No interest accrues. No debt sits on my books. My 4.4% first mortgage stayed completely untouched. I got cash and used it to wipe out $40K in credit card debt that was charging me 22% interest.

Think about that for a second. I was paying 22% interest every month on credit card debt. Now I’m paying 0% on the Unison agreement. The money I freed up from not having credit card payments anymore is life changing. And I didn’t add a single dollar of monthly payment to replace it.

What I Had To Qualify

Credit score 620+. At least 30% equity in my home (max LTV of 70%). Reasonable debt to income ratio. Primary residence only. Single family, townhome, or condo. They’re in 29 states right now.

The eligibility check tells you right away if your situation works. Takes about 2 minutes.

What The Process Looked Like

Started with the free online eligibility check. No SSN. No credit impact. Took 2 minutes and showed me an estimate of how much I could access.

Then I submitted a full application through their portal. Uploaded documents, got an independent appraisal and property inspection done. Unison applies a 5% risk adjustment to the appraised value to set the starting value of the agreement.

After everything was approved they sent over the offer letter and closing package. Signed with a notary and got my funds. There’s a 3.0% to 3.9% transaction fee on the investment amount plus appraisal and settlement costs. No other fees. No monthly anything.

What I’d Want To Know If I Were Reading This

The trade off is real. I’m sharing a portion of my home’s future appreciation in exchange for cash today with zero monthly payments. If my home goes up significantly over the years Unison’s share will be meaningful. That’s the cost.

But here’s how I thought about it. I was drowning in credit card payments at 22% interest. Every traditional option to access my equity would have added another $800 to $1,200 a month to my bills. Unison added $0.

I used the cash to eliminate the credit card debt completely. No more 22% interest. No more minimum payments. And I didn’t replace it with a single new monthly payment. The net effect on my monthly budget was purely positive. That’s what made the decision simple for me.

It’s not for everybody. If you’re planning to sell within a year or two it probably doesn’t make sense. You should plan to stay in your home at least 5 years. And you have to be comfortable with the idea of sharing future appreciation that you haven’t earned yet.

But if you’re sitting on equity with a low mortgage rate and you need cash without adding debt or monthly payments, I’d at least check the numbers. 2 minutes. No credit impact. No commitment. That’s how I started and it ended up being the best financial move I’ve made in years.

A year from now you’ll be glad you checked today.