SoFi Review

Wednesday, May 18th

2022 Home Equity Loan Reviews

SoFi

SoFi stands for "social finance", illustrating this company's approach to lending, different from traditional lenders like banks. Treating their clients as "members", this company aims to help both investors and borrowers to reach their financial goals.

Spring HQ Is The Real Lender

You don't really need to know very much about this company as a source of home equity loans. Why? SoFi passes all of those inquiries along to Spring HQ, which bills itself as "one of the nation's largest non-bank home equity lenders". That's a positive for SoFi: where they only have an "A" rating and no accreditation with the Better Business Bureau, Spring HQ has an "A+" and is also accredited there.

Solid Reputation, But A Few Complaints

Spring HQ has an overall solid reputation, but we still found some complaints. Customers said that the process dragged out over weeks, not days, and that they were still denied a loan at the end - despite meeting all of the criteria for income, loan-to-value, and so forth. Many clients had a hard time getting a response from Spring HQ representatives. Others said that they paid $250+ for a drive-by appraisal that significantly undervalued their home, compared with other reliable evaluations of the property.

Getting Started With Your Loan Application

Let's say you go ahead with the process. What can you expect? First, you'll complete their preliminary application, to prequalify you for your home equity loan. Fill out basic details like address, phone number and email, then information about the current mortgage and value. On the slider where it indicates how much you'd like to borrow, it will automatically populate to represent the minimum and maximum amounts based on a debt-to-income ratio of 43% or less. (You'll have to take out a home equity loan with a minimum of $25,000.) Finally, once you provide your birthdate (so that Spring HQ can do a "soft pull" on your credit history), you'll get a prequalification results page.

Rate Transparency

We weren't blown away by our results. Despite having two columns - "Lowest Payment" and "Lowest Rate" - our offers were exactly the same: a term of 240 months, with a middling APR. While our rate was lower than some of SoFi/Spring HQ's competitors, we didn't love the fact that our only option was a 20-year term.

Schedule An Appointment

Spring HQ also comes up short compared with lenders that let you complete the entire process online: after getting your results page, you have no other option than to schedule an appointment to speak with a representative. That takes away a lot of the convenience offered by 100% online providers of home equity loans.

Wait For Your Money

Another drawback? Your home equity loan could take a little longer here to reach your account: your cash might not be deposited for two weeks or more. In fact, while their website said loans are funded as quickly as 14 days, the intro email we received from Spring HQ said we should expect it to take at least three weeks for funds to be deposited.

Good Rates, But Inconvenient And Fewer Options

In short, we can't say much about SoFi with respect to home equity loans, since they don't have any part of the process beyond funneling your inquiry to their partner, Spring HQ. This partner lender is a decent option for a home equity loan: their rates were fairly competitive and the company has a good reputation. But, they don't measure up to comparable services that fund loans much more quickly, and you won't get the convenience of a 100% online application process.