Access up to $600,000 of your home equity. No monthly payments. No interest. Credit from 500.
If you have equity in your home but your credit score or your state keeps ruling you out, Point is usually the first company worth checking.
Point offers a home equity investment. You take cash now, and Point receives an agreed share of your home’s value when you settle. You can settle any time within a term of up to 30 years, and nothing is owed monthly in between.
Short version: Point is legitimate, it accepts credit from around 500, and it operates in more places than anyone else on our list. The catch is the one every company in this category shares, which is that you are selling a slice of your future appreciation. Here is the honest breakdown.
If you are still deciding between product types rather than companies, our guide to HELOC alternatives lays out every way to reach your equity without taking on a monthly payment.
What Is Point?
Point is a home equity investment provider. It is not a lender and this is not a loan, which is the distinction that governs everything else about the product.
Instead of lending you money and charging interest, Point gives you a lump sum and takes a share of what your home is worth at settlement. You keep the title. You keep living there. Nothing gets added to your monthly budget.
That structure is what lets Point approve people banks will not. Credit from around 500 qualifies and there are no income requirements, which matters if you are self employed, retired, or between jobs.
For the wider category view, see our roundup of the best home equity investment companies.
How the Point agreement works
Enter your address and an estimate of your home value. It takes a couple of minutes and there is no hard credit pull to see a number.
Point reviews your equity position and comes back with how much you could access and what share it would receive at settlement.
If you move forward, Point verifies the home’s value and finalizes terms. This is where the numbers become real.
Money lands in your account. No monthly payment starts, because there is no loan.
Any time within the term you sell, refinance, or buy the agreement out. Point receives its agreed share of the home’s value at that point.
Fees and costs
Point charges a processing fee that is deducted from your funding rather than paid out of pocket, and the exact percentage is quoted in your offer rather than published as a flat rate. Ask for it in writing before you sign anything.
On top of that you pay the standard closing items: appraisal or automated valuation, title, escrow, and recording fees. Those also come out of your funding, so you net less than the headline number.
The real cost is not the fee though. It is the share Point receives at settlement, and that scales with how much your home appreciates. A flat market makes this reasonable. A fast appreciating market makes it expensive. This is true of every company in the category and it is the single thing to model before signing.
Never take the first offer
Homeowners regularly see six figure differences between companies on the same property in the same week. Compare before you commit.
See How the Companies Compare →Free estimates, no obligationEligibility requirements
Credit score from around 500. No income or employment requirements. Point uses an appraisal or an automated valuation to establish your home’s value, and availability can vary by county even inside the states it serves.
State availability
Point operates in 29 states plus Washington, D.C., which is the widest footprint in this category. Because it serves select regions, confirm your county and not just your state before spending time on an application.
Pros and cons: the full picture
Pros
- Accepts credit scores from around 500, the lowest bar in this category
- No income or employment requirements
- Up to $600,000, matching the highest cap we track
- 29 states plus D.C., more than any rival
- Buy back your equity at any time with no prepayment penalty
- Up to a 30 year term, so you choose when to exit
Cons
- Availability varies by county within the listed states
- An appraisal or automated valuation is required
- You share in future appreciation, which costs more if values climb fast
- The processing fee is quoted per offer rather than published
- A lien is placed on your home, which complicates refinancing
Why the appreciation share is the real tradeoff
This is the part worth slowing down on. Point’s 30 year term is generous, and a long runway genuinely helps, because you are never forced to settle in a down year the way a 10 year agreement can force you.
What you pay for that flexibility is the share itself. The longer you hold, the more appreciation accumulates, and the share you hand back at settlement grows with it. A 30 year term is not free time, it is more time for the cost to compound.
Run the number both ways before you sign. Model an exit at year five and an exit at year twenty on a realistic appreciation rate for your market, and compare both against what a HELOC would have cost over the same period.
Point vs. competitors
Here is the thing nobody tells you about comparing these companies: you cannot do it from a table. One homeowner in a forum thread had two of them come back $175,000 apart on the same house in the same week. Same property, same equity, same month. The spread was not about fees or terms, it was about how each company valued the home and priced the risk.
This review
Which one to pull a number from
Hometap if you want the biggest single number. They go to $600,000 and accept credit from 585 with no income requirement. The 10 year term means a fixed settlement window, so this suits people who have a rough idea when they will sell or refinance.
Unison if you want down market protection. Unison shares in depreciation as well as appreciation, so if your home loses value you pay back less. Their term also runs up to 30 years, and they have been doing this since 2004.
Point if credit or your state is the problem. Around 500 is the lowest floor here, and at 29 states plus D.C. Point reaches homeowners the others simply cannot. The long term means you settle on your schedule rather than a deadline.
All of them are free to check and none of them obligate you to anything. Pulling two numbers takes about ten minutes and it is the only way to know which one is actually better for your property.
Is Point right for you?
Point fits if
- Your credit is under 585 and Hometap or Unison have said no
- You are self employed or your income is hard to document
- You live somewhere the smaller companies do not operate
- You want the option to settle on your own timeline rather than a deadline
- You need a large amount and want the $600,000 ceiling
Look elsewhere if
- You can qualify for a HELOC, which is cheaper over most timelines
- Your market is appreciating fast and you plan to hold for decades
- You want a published fee schedule before you apply
- You are selling within two or three years, since upfront costs do not amortize
- You want a company that shares in depreciation as well as gains
If you land in the right column, price a HELOC first. Our guide to the best HELOC lenders covers the options, and several do a soft credit pull so checking costs nothing. If speed is your constraint, see which options fund quickest in our guide to getting a home equity loan fast, and for the wider tradeoffs read our breakdown of home equity agreement pros and cons.
Frequently asked questions
My final take
Point is the strongest first call in this category for most people, and the reason is simple: it says yes in more places and at lower credit scores than anything else here. If another company has already declined you, Point is the one most likely to come back with a number.
The 30 year term is a genuine advantage over the 10 year agreements, because you are never forced to settle in a bad year. Just remember that a longer hold also gives the appreciation share more time to grow.
Either way, get more than one number. That is the only advice in this category that is true for everybody.
Point
Home equity investment covering 29 states plus D.C., the widest reach in this category, with a credit floor around 500, no income requirements and a term of up to 30 years.
