Millennials are tapping home equity for vacations and emergency cash

Marketwatch reports:

Millennials are often described as prioritizing leisure and entertainment, but many are going into debt to fund them.

Most financial planners caution homeowners against using home-equity loans to fund short-term expenses, including vacations. Yet that is the most popular use of the money for the more than half of U.S. homeowners between the ages of 30 and 34 who have owned a home for three years or more and have taken out a home-equity loan, according to results of a Discover Home Equity Loans survey, released on Wednesday.

“It mystifies me that they’re taking out additional debt,” said Jackson Mueller, deputy director of the FinTech Program for the Center for Financial Markets at the Milken Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that aims to increase global prosperity. “But it doesn’t really surprise me that they’re using alternative financing to fund certain things.”

Many millennials are shunning credit cards, looking for less expensive ways to borrow, he said.

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