It Is A Mortgage

People don’t seem to realize that a home equity loan, for which the property is pledged as security, is indeed a mortgage. Yours is presently a second mortgage. When your first is paid off, the home equity loan would move up in priority and become your first mortgage, with first claim on your property.

Some day in the future, if you wanted to place a large new mortgage, a lender might not do it unless the holder of the home equity loan agreed to yield first place, step back and have just a subordinate second mortgage again. Or, of course, you could simply pay it off