Today, just $11 billion in home equity lines of credit require both principal and interest payments. By 2018 the number will be ten times that, $111 billion.
The four biggest banks alone hold HELOCs with credit lines approaching $300 billion.
Gretchen Morgenson has many of the details at The New York Times, here.
It is unclear from the story just how many first mortgages already underwater also have HELOCs. It is widely estimated that 25 percent of firsts are underwater. Add HELOCs on top of any of those and both lenders and borrowers are back in a world of hurt, as if they had actually gone anywhere but the purgatory we now inhabit.
