Usually, depending upon your lender, you can borrow 80% to 100% of the loan to value of your home, subtracting any amount that you still owe on the mortgage.

How Much Credit is Available to You

The lender will take into consideration many aspects when they tell you just how much credit is available to you through a home equity loan. They take into consideration your past payment history, income, past credit history, as well as whether you could afford to make payments. The actual calculation uses the appraised value of your home minus what you owe. The lender will then use a certain percentage of this and this will be the amount of credit that you are given.

You credit score plays a huge role in what amount of credit that you are given. The lenders will use your FICO score to see just how worthy you are of the credit. In order to maintain a good FICO score you should always pay your bills on time and keep the amount of credit that you use at a good even level. FICO scores are based payment history, which is 35% of the score, amounts owed (30%), length of credit history (15%), new credit (10%) and types of credit used (10%).

Once you have been approved for home equity credit, you can then take out money usually through check or credit card.