Fifth Third Bank HELOC on rental property

[Gary Shorter]

I bought my first rental property back in September 2015 for 15k cash. Houses that are similar sell for 60+k and so is the current tax appraisal. Well the house took me 6 months to rehab and get it to the point that it would be worth that much. Finally got the house ready to rent and decided it was time to open my first HELOC to free up some cash for my next house.

I have banked with Fifth Third for 12 years and have never had a problem. I figured they would be good to go with since I have had a history with them and their HELOC offer online looked really good. Went and talked with a Financial Manager and filled out an application. Everything on my part looked good, a credit score of 810, excellent history, and great income from direct deposit.

At the time of application it was explained to me that they would have to add a .25% being a rental which was not a big deal. Also instead of 70%LTV they could only do 65%LTV. We would put in for the appraisal for being 55k so my HELOC limit would be around 35K . Seemed like everything was in order and I thought it would be no problem getting approved since I already have a 15k credit card with Fifth Third for the past 8 years.

Well after two weeks of having to send in extra documents and re-answer questions to my Financial Manage that I already discussed at the time of application. I find out some interesting news. I was told that the underwriters do not want to do an appraisal on the house and will only give me the 65% on my purchase price of 15k. So that comes to just under 10k. So all of that run around for two weeks and then find this out? Does this sound right to anyone else? Do I need to wait a year and then file again for the exact same HELOC ?