Achieve Home Equity Loan Review
Joy Wallet is advertiser-supported: we may earn compensation from the products and offers mentioned in this article. However, any expressed opinions are our own and aren't influenced by compensation. To read our full disclosure, click here.
Many people are still struggling with credit card debt and other personal debt following the pandemic. With interest rates staying high across the country, it’s been difficult for many Americans to effectively pay down these debts, even if they did have some wins in the pandemic, such as getting a home with a historically low interest rate.
One thing some homeowners don’t think about is that their home can actually be a tool for debt paydown. With a home equity loan or a home equity line of credit, you can borrow against your existing mortgage to access better rates and ultimately take control of your outstanding debts.
If you’re on the hunt for debt relief with competitive rates, Achieve Home Loans is one company you may have come across. Keep reading to learn more about how Achieve Home Loans could be helpful in your debt consolidation and what you need to know about their home equity loans.
Jump To
What is Achieve Home Loans?
Achieve Home Loans, more commonly known as Achieve Personal Loans or simply Achieve, offers a unique solution for debt consolidation using your home mortgage as collateral. It combines the fixed-rate interest you’d expect from a traditional home equity loan with the ability to draw down and repay from the loan like a home equity line of credit (or HELOC). This gives it more versatility than other financial products on the market.
Achieve positions itself as a digital personal finance company with the mission statement: “We empower everyday people to move forward on the path to a better financial future.” In that vein, they offer various financial services and products, including personal loans, home equity loans, an acceleration loan to finish your debt resolution, and other options for debt resolution.
Access Your Equity
$15,000-$150,000 fixed-rate loans Save $10k avg/year, fund in 15 days
Pay Debt With Equity
Flexible 10 or 15-year terms Resolve or pay debt on your terms
How does Achieve Home Loans work?
It’s quite simple to calculate how you might benefit from Achieve. Visit their website and navigate to the page about home equity loans. From there, select how much you’re hoping to borrow and then click the blue “Get Started” button.
After you’ve clicked “Get Started,” it’s time to input more information about you and your financial situation as part of the application process. This includes confirming how much money you want to borrow and selecting what you intend to use the money for. Achieve supports loans for a wide range of loan purposes, including:
- Credit card refinancing
- Debt consolidation
- Home improvement
- Wedding
- Travel/vacation
- Medical expenses
You’ll also confirm that you’re a homeowner and include your annual income, as well as the income of any co-borrower you aim to apply for your home equity loan with.
When you click next, it will be time to provide more personal information, including your first and last name, date of birth, phone number, and email address. You’ll also provide your home address on the next page and then be ready to preview potential loan offers and loan terms.
How much does Achieve Home Loans cost?
As with many lenders, the cost of your loan can vary depending on a few factors. These include details like your interest rate, loan amount, and repayment terms you’ve agreed to. Achieve has no prepayment fees. Typically, an origination fee of around 4.99% is required for your home equity loan, as well as an underwriting fee of around $750. That means that if your loan application is for $50,000, you could be looking at $2,495 in origination fees plus an additional $750 in underwriting for a total cost of $3,245.
Access Your Equity
$15,000-$150,000 fixed-rate loans Save $10k avg/year, fund in 15 days
Pay Debt With Equity
Flexible 10 or 15-year terms Resolve or pay debt on your terms
Achieve Home Loans features
Broad loan amounts available
One nice thing about Achieve’s home equity loans is the wide range of loan amounts borrowers can apply for. Achieve’s home loans typically range between $15,000 to $150,000 and have 10- to 15-year repayment periods. While that minimum loan amount is a bit higher than other lenders may offer, when considering the origination fees associated with Achieve, tapping your equity for less doesn’t make that much sense if you’ll be charged anyway.
Fast funding
A big selling point of working with Achieve for your home equity loan is that you can receive your funds in your bank account in as little as 15 business days after your application is approved.
Possibility for pre-qualification
If you want to be more certain that you’ll get approved with Achieve before you formally apply, you can get pre-qualified through a soft credit check that has much less of an impact on your credit score.
Rate discounts available
Achieve’s loan APRs range from 8.99% to 35.99%, depending on the credit score on your credit report. However, one benefit of using Achieve for your home equity loan is that they offer various discounts you might qualify for to reduce your overall interest rate.
For example, adding a co-borrower to your loan could give you up to six points off your interest rate, with a direct pay discount (when your loan is sent directly to your creditors or lenders for debt consolidation loans), earning you up to 4% off. You may also be eligible for loan options with lower rates if you showcase sufficient retirement savings.
Who is Achieve Home Loans best for?
If you have poor or good credit, Achieve Home Loans is a great option for debt consolidation. Their credit score requirement for home equity loans is relatively low: 640. Of course, your monthly payment will likely be higher if your interest rate is higher, which may be the case with a lower credit score.
Who shouldn’t use Achieve Home Loans?
If you don’t own a home or have enough equity in your home, Achieve isn’t a great option for you (or an option at all). Additionally, if you live in certain states, you may not be eligible for a loan with Achieve. Finally, you may find more competitive rates from other lenders if you have excellent credit.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Fast approval. Most loans with Achieve are approved the same day they are received, and loans are typically funded within 15 business days, although many times, they fund much faster than that.
- Rate discounts. Especially at a time when interest rates are so high, qualifying for rate discounts that can save you up to 6% on your interest rate is a huge boon for anyone who doesn’t think they’ll have the credit score to refinance their rates.
- Soft credit pull for pre-qualification. When you get pre-qualified for a home equity loan with Achieve, you’ll only have to worry about a soft credit pull. This means your credit score won’t be impacted, but you’ll still have information about the types of interest rates and monthly payments with them.
Cons
- Origination fee. With an origination fee of almost 5%, getting a loan with Achieve will cost you.
- High minimum loan requirement. If you want a loan with Achieve, you’ll need to be applying for at least $15,000 in order to qualify for their home equity loan.
- Not available in all 50 states. Unfortunately, funding through Achieve isn’t available in every state. Even if you live in the United States, if you reside in Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, or Wyoming, you won’t be able to receive a loan from Achieve.
Access Your Equity
$15,000-$150,000 fixed-rate loans Save $10k avg/year, fund in 15 days
Pay Debt With Equity
Flexible 10 or 15-year terms Resolve or pay debt on your terms
Achieve Home Loans vs. competitors
APR Range | Loan Amount | Minimum Credit Score | |
Achieve | 8.99% to 34.99% | $15,000 - $150,000 | 640 |
FreedomPlus | Not Published Online | $10,000-$250,000 | 620 |
LendingTree | Beginning at 6.99% | $25,000 - $150,000 | 620 |
FreedomPlus
FreedomPlus could be a good option for a home equity loan, especially if you're looking for flexibility in loan terms and competitive interest rates. They offer a variety of repayment options, which can be tailored to fit different financial situations, making it easier to manage your budget. Additionally, FreedomPlus is known for its straightforward application process and responsive customer service, which can be a significant advantage when navigating loan agreements and understanding the fine print.
LendingTree
LendingTree offers a unique advantage as a home equity loan option due to its marketplace model, which allows you to compare multiple loan offers from different lenders after filling out a single application. This can be particularly beneficial if you're looking to find the most competitive rates and terms without needing to apply separately to numerous lenders.
FAQs
What kind of credit score do you need to qualify for a home equity loan with Achieve?
According to the Fair Credit disclosure at the bottom of Achieve’s website, the minimum credit score required for home loan debt consolidation requests is 640 and the a minimum score of 620 applies to personal loan requests.
Is Achieve Home Loans available in all 50 states?
No. Even if you own a home, you won’t be eligible for a loan from Achieve if you live in Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, or Wyoming.
What do you need to qualify for a home equity loan with Achieve?
In order to be eligible for a home equity loan with Achieve, you’ll need to have at least a credit score of 640. Additionally, your debt-to-income ratio (or DTI) needs to be at least 45% without including your mortgage amount. Beyond these eligibility requirements, you’ll also need to have a minimum credit history of three years with at least two accounts, and not have filed for bankruptcy in the last two years.
Access Your Equity
$15,000-$150,000 fixed-rate loans Save $10k avg/year, fund in 15 days
Pay Debt With Equity
Flexible 10 or 15-year terms Resolve or pay debt on your terms
The bottom line
One of the best things about a home equity loan with Achieve is how it empowers borrowers. Namely, by combining features of both a home equity loan with a fixed rate and the flexibility of a HELOC as a line of credit, Achieve can be a useful tool in paying down your debt and modulating based on your needs.
While some people are concerned about how they’ll be able to refinance their loan later to get a good interest rate, Achieve gives a variety of rate discounts that allow you to decrease your rate by up to six percentage points for qualifying activity. Repayment terms are another benefit of using Achieve since they offer both 10 and 15-year loan terms. Plus, Achieve lets you use your loan for a wide range of activities, from debt consolidation to home improvement costs and even medical expenses.
Achieve is potentially beneficial, especially if your credit is fair or good, since their minimum credit score requirement is 640. Beyond that, a rate discount can allow you to get a more competitive rate than other options at the same credit score. However, if you have excellent credit or don’t own a home, you may not want to look into Achieve for your debt consolidation needs.
Only you will know whether or not Achieve fits your needs completely. However, with perks like a low minimum credit requirement, fast funding, and the flexibility of a HELOC, there are definite benefits to taking out a home equity loan with the company.
Joy Wallet is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor, financial advisor, loan broker, insurance producer, or insurance broker. Its articles, interactive tools and other content are provided to you for free, as self-help tools and for informational purposes only. They are not intended to provide investment advice. Joy Wallet does not and cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information in regard to your individual circumstances. We encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific investment issues. Featured estimates are based on past market performance, and past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.
Our site doesn’t feature every company or financial product available on the market. We are compensated by our partners, which may influence which products we review and write about (and where those products appear on our site), but it in no way affects our recommendations or advice. Our editorials are grounded on independent research. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services.
We value your privacy. We work with trusted partners to provide relevant advertising based on information about your use of Joy Wallet’s and third-party websites and applications. This includes, but is not limited to, sharing information about your web browsing activities with Meta (Facebook) and Google. All of the web browsing information that is shared is anonymized. To learn more, click on our Privacy Policy link.
Images appearing across JoyWallet are courtesy of shutterstock.com.
Writer
Brent Ervin-Eickhoff is a Chicago-based writer, stage director, and filmmaker with a background in digital marketing and content creation. In addition to Joy Wallet, Brent has written for Complex, Volkswagen, HowlRound, Picture this Post, and Third Coast Review, among others. He currently serves as the Associate Director of Marketing for Content Creation at Court Theatre at the University of Chicago. Brent graduated from Ball State University with Academic Honors in Writing.
Share this article
