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This is one of those questions that may seem pretty straightforward until you look for the answer. You may need to keep a few things in mind, such as your options for releasing your equity, how much you have, whether you can use it to invest in buy-to-let and more.

Can You Use Equity in Your Property as a Deposit to Purchase a New Home?

This is one of the most common ways people use the equity they built in their homes. But you can do it. You can use equity as a deposit, giving you a chance to lower the amount you need to borrow for the new mortgage. That allows you to reduce your loan-to-value or LTV, which enables you to have a much greater range of mortgage choices.

The simplest way to look at things is as an unsecured profit, something that makes the difference between the sheer market value of a home and the amount you still owe until you pay off the property. You haven’t sold your home yet, so that makes it unsecured. Property prices fluctuate, or you may pay off more of the mortgage before you see the equity you accumulated released. There is also a flipside to this, in the face of:

Negative Equity

Whether or not you can use the equity in your home as a deposit, we’re looking for positive equity. On the other hand, if you owe more than the value of your property, you have fallen into negative equity. This happens when a home’s price drops dramatically for one reason or another. Certain places have disproportionate amounts of homes that fall into this category, thanks to the state of the local property market. If you ever find yourself in this situation, you should either move home or remortgage your property, but that could be extremely difficult.

How to find out if you have accrued any equity in your home

The formula to work out your property equity is fairly simple, but you need the proper figures before you can start calculating. The rough property value can be gauged by doing a bit of online research. You can do that on property portals like Zoopla, Rightmove and so forth, searching for similar properties in the same area as yours that was recently sold. This gives you an idea of the price range offered, something you can also obtain by calling a reputable local estate agent to get your home professionally viewed.

You can check the latest mortgage statement or call your lender for what’s left to pay off your mortgage. Most lenders out there will send mortgage statements annually, so your latest one may not be that recent. It’s best to give them a call to get more accurate figures. With those two things in mind, you can subtract the amount you owe from the value of your property. The result is the amount of equity you have.

6 Ways to Release Equity from Your House

If the results of your calculations show you’re positive, that’s good news, and you may want to think about how you can use that to your advantage. The listed tips below give you that chance:

• Obtain a second charge mortgage
• Take out a further advance loan
• Use the equity to buy your next home outright
• Remortgage your home
• Access equity via an equity release scheme
• Use the equity as a deposit on your next move

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