HELOC approval without income

[moneymatters242]

Our home is paid off, and my goal has been to take out a HELOC and then leave it sit as a quick source of funds to be tapped under very rare, specific circumstances in the future, e.g.: emergency fund, rare investment opportunities, etc.  Due to life craziness, I kept postponing looking into it, until it ended up in a bucket of "to-do's" upon FIREing (which I finally did a month ago).

I've now learned that banks couldn't care less about the liquid assets I have when it comes to approving a HELOC, assets which in my case are mostly in stocks.  All the banks seem to care about is verifiable income (and a job), and I now have neither to show.  I've struck out hard with two lenders so far.  I keep kicking myself... If only I'd done this a month sooner before leaving the job...

Has anyone in a similar situation, without verifiable job/income, successfully managed to get approved for a HELOC?  Are there certain lenders that are willing to treat a certain level of assets as equivalent to income for approval purposes?

[spartana]

I've had this same problem post-FIRE. Denied because I didn't have a earned income from a job. House was paid off in a HCOL area, I had no debt, but my FIRE income (mostly from investments) was too low or not a valid source of income for a HELOC and I was many years away from being able to tap traditional retirement assets. I didn't need it but was kind of surprised because I was only asking for a small percent of the houses actual value.

I also had the same experience when looking to rent a place after I sold my house. Denied because of no job income and, even if they counted my FIRE income, it wasn't high enough to qualify for the 3 times the rent amount most places required. Others here have had the same problems qualifying for a new mortgage but there are some investment backed mortgages out there.

[GilesMM]

Not a great idea to be looking for sources of debt when retired but I believe it is called an Asset Depletion Loan.


 An alternative would be a margin loan at a large banker.

[SilentC]

Sounds like you are probably over invested in stocks?  You can make 5% in money market, maybe just have an appropriate amount of cash.