Startup with a new type of home equity loan?

[Account Closed]

A few weeks ago I received a flyer in the mail from a company that offered a new type of equity loan. The loans are for up to $50-100k I believe. They collect 0 interest and require 0 monthly payments from the borrower. Then, when you sell your house, they take the money back, plus a fee based on the % increase in your home value since the loan was issued. If your home has lost value, they claim they will suffer that loss with you and you owe them even less than your borrowed in the first place. On top of that, they pay in as little as 14 days. I chuckled and threw it in the trash. Too good to be true. But now curiosity has set in and I'm trying to find out more. Has anyone heard of this company or this type of loan?

[Chris Mason]

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Too good to be true. But now curiosity has set in and I'm trying to find out more. Has anyone heard of this company or this type of loan?

"Too good to be true" my rear end. Offering it as a HELOC is new to me, but equity harvesting mortgages have been around a couple years, at least in the Bay Area. I refuse to offer them. Every single time I run numbers, it screws the borrower, and that's true if I'm using conservative or liberal appreciation estimates. Worse even than reverse mortgages.

If you believe you are in a depreciating market, it would likely make sense. But then my question is... why are you buying real estate in a depreciating market? 

I have a conjecture that equity harvesting schemes are more likely to be offered in strong appreciation markets, but since I only see Bay Area and SoCal stuff and not Ohio and Nebraska stuff, I wouldn't have any way to validate or refute that hypothesis.