My Husband Is Getting Real Estate Advice From TikTok (Is This A Bad Idea?)

Añadido: 2026-06-03

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[00:00:06]My husband is currently following a TikToker who is promoting this first lien HELOC.

[00:00:14]And I'm very hesitant about it. In fact, my family gives me the name dream crusher because I'm just not a risk taker.

[00:00:24]>> But [laughter] um Dream crusher. Hey, here's my big problem number one, Brooke.

[00:00:28]Your husband's quote following a TikToker.

[00:00:32]>> [laughter] >> That should be your first problem right there.

[00:00:34]Well, that's what I say, too, but he thinks that I don't really understand the process. He's following a TikToker.

[00:00:42]Right, but I look at but I'm looking at the numbers and I just don't feel I just can't see how it could work.

[00:00:48]>> So So Tell us about it.

[00:00:50]>> ahead. Tell us about the first lien This is a TikToker. By the way, Brooke, this is my favorite call the whole day.

[00:00:56]There's no way a call is going to be better than this one. [laughter] >> [gasps] >> Are you Are you Are you 16 and he's 17?

[00:01:01]Did you all get married real young?

[00:01:04]Well, no. I'm actually in my 50s, but we did we have been married for a long time.

[00:01:09]Please tell me your husband's a 50-year-old TikToker. He is. He is.

[00:01:14]>> [laughter] >> He is. I I Every once in a while I wake up and I just think as a society we're doomed and this is another vote for that.

[00:01:24]>> [laughter] >> Right. Well, I think it's once you you know, once you click on something then you see all of the same things. And so this particular guy keeps coming across and the way that he advertises it sounds I don't know. To him it sounds great.

[00:01:39]But this first lien HELOC serves as your bank account.

[00:01:42]>> I know. I know.

[00:01:43]I know. I know. I know. Why? And and and just to be clear, if you Typically, if you take a HELOC like in the order it's like you've got your mortgage and then you get got the HELOC under it. So, if you were to foreclose, the the would first pay off the mortgage and then the HELOC would go next. With first lien, it reverses that order. So, the home equity line of credit is first as the first thing that's paid. That sort of thing.

[00:02:04]My question is why? Why do you need this? Why Why are you guys to the point of doing these types of things?

[00:02:12]I don't think that we do need it. And that's But see, the advertisement is that oh, you can pay this off in 3 to 6 years, which But my view is what's he using the money like? What's the purpose of the What's the purpose of it? The grand purpose in his mind? We need to get the first lien HELOC because I need to get a boat or because we're funding college. Like what's What is Why?

[00:02:37]The why is base is the pay off in 3 to 6 years. I mean, we're trying for retirement. We're trying to get things settled before we retire. And so, that's the attraction. It is to pay off this early. But we don't have like this huge income like minus our debts that we have to even throw at this HELOC. Cuz that's what it seems like to me that you need.

[00:03:01]You need this huge income.

[00:03:04]Right. So, so the the problem here is Hey, George here for Churchill Mortgage. Listen, with interest rates dropping, this might be your window to buy a home or refinance.

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[00:03:43]You still owe X amount of dollars.

[00:03:47]Yes. And there's not a There's not a There's not a way to not owe that much money.

[00:03:55]Well, we Our income is okay that we we only owe $220,000 on our house. It's worth about 5 to 600,000.

[00:04:03]>> Okay. We have it at a two Uh-huh. Like I get that. I get that. But here here's what's important. You owe $200,000.

[00:04:11]Right. Divide that by 6 years, 72 months.

[00:04:15]And I can't do that math in my head like Dave can, but like do you have that much money to >> put towards this?

[00:04:21]No. Okay. There's not going to be a secret atomic way to make you owe less than $200,000 on your mortgage.

[00:04:30]There might be a way that you can reduce your interest rate.

[00:04:37]Maybe.

[00:04:38]And so technically, you owe $200,000 after 6 years, you're going to be paying interest also. So there might be a way to make it a little bit smaller, maybe.

[00:04:50]You get what I'm saying? Like no matter what you're doing, you still owe $200,000.

[00:04:54]And you got 72 months that this thing is telling you you could pay it off.

[00:04:57]There's not a way to contract time or to contract money from what you owe.

[00:05:05]Right. So your your gut feeling is right. You know why? Cuz it's just math.

[00:05:10]Mhm.

[00:05:12]Yeah. Well, and our mortgage is only 2.75.

[00:05:16]Right.

[00:05:16]>> I go through a HELOC, yeah, it's a daily rate of like 8% not even that.

[00:05:22]>> it variable? Does it vary?

[00:05:24]The HELOC apparently would be. Yeah.

[00:05:27]>> Yeah, and that's scary, too.

[00:05:28]>> Why would you This There There's I can see and and I'm trying to say this in a non-incredulous way, but truly I can see no good in this. None. Zero.

[00:05:38]>> see no good in this. And if the goal if you guys have sat around and said, "What's our goal?" Our goal is to pay off the mortgage.

[00:05:45]Yeah.

[00:05:45]>> That's actually uh a very simple process. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying it is a very simple process. I pay my mortgage payment and then anything and above my mortgage payment, I apply it to the principal and I do that as often and as many times as I can and as as high amounts as I possibly can and every time I do that, I'm affecting the amortization schedule. Every time I do that, more of my actual mortgage payment is going towards the like that is the way it works. That is how folks do it. That's how millionaires do it and that is probably if I were to really try to form an argument against this other than just kind of like sheer logic and in simplicity. I would go back to our millionaire study, John and I would just talk about how we've studied what the practices of millionaires are.

[00:06:33]Everyday millionaires, baby steps millionaires. I'm not talking about billionaires. I'm talking about millionaires and what they do is they pay for cars and they never do car payments again and they pay off their home mortgage and they avoid debt and they budget their money. These are the practices of what I'm going to refer to as the 401k millionaire, the average millionaire in in America. This is what they do. And so, for me, this sounds like a very complex heady strategy to do something that's actually simple to do.

[00:07:05]Why am I going to add steps and add rigmarole to something that doesn't require it and honestly adds risk to the equation. And and let's let's like Let's say your home mortgage was at 10% and you could get a first lien HELOC at 2.75.

[00:07:26]Somebody could sit down and make the case that I have just and even though it's variable interest rate and so if interest rates go up, thank God there's nothing going on in the world or the economy that makes me any somewhat nervous at all about the future, right?

[00:07:40]I'm being ridiculous right now.

[00:07:42]So, um if you could somehow magically flip a switch to where you're paying 2.75% mortgage versus a 10% I I I couldn't say you were crazy. I might say it's not something I want to do.

[00:07:57]>> Yeah, sure. I don't want to put my house on the block again.

[00:08:01]But what you're doing is you're creating essentially a line of credit. You'd have to be superhuman to never spend this line of credit. There's no way you're going to get a better interest rate.

[00:08:11]>> is acting as the primary mortgage. I I just >> can draw from it. So, it's a credit card at a variable rate that's higher than your more like there's no possible win here.

[00:08:22]>> Yeah, and I don't like the fact that like with the temptation is there that you can withdraw anytime you want.

[00:08:28]That's right. I don't like that. And has he has he and I don't know if he's gone so far as to say, I ran the numbers like this and I ran the numbers like this and here's how much faster we could do it.

[00:08:38]Here's the exact amount of money that we've saved. I mean, obviously John or I I mean, you would have to play a perfect game I feel like in order for this to >> It still wouldn't matter though. You got a 2.75% You you've already won the the the mortgage lottery.

[00:08:53]But has he done that? Has he even done any due diligence as far as to say such things?

[00:08:59]No, not yet.

[00:09:01]Not have on my part. [clears throat] >> Yeah. I challenge him here.

[00:09:05]Challenge him here.

[00:09:07]Write me a plan to where we pay off this house in 72 months at $200,000 the remaining balance plus in plus our 2.7% mortgage. Here's our plan. Here's how much we'd have to pay off every month.

[00:09:20]Show me with your first lean HELOC math how we would accelerate that by 6 months or a year or 2 years. Also with the variable interest rate that it could go up. It could go way up.

[00:09:34]>> And with the temptation that we could spend against it.

[00:09:37]>> Right.

[00:09:38]Yeah. It's just total madness. Create your free every dollar budget today, the simplest way to budget for your life.