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Discover: 2025 Home Equity Review

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Updated on May 14, 2025

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Discover Home Loans logo
NMLS: 453156
Bankrate score

4.0

Rating: 4 stars out of 5
i
Our methodology
Customer score

3.1

Rating: 3.07 stars out of 5
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Read reviews

Find competitive home equity rates near you

Discover overview

Discover is probably best known as one of the largest card issuers in the U.S., cementing its position as a cash rewards pioneer when it launched its namesake credit card in 1986. In addition to the Discover card, parent company Discover Financial Services offers a variety of financial products, including home equity loans, which it launched in 2013.

How Bankrate scored Discover

Affordability: 5/5

  • APR: Discover's website provides a range of possible APR rates for home equity loans. At the time of this review, Discover’s minimum quoted APR was below the national average.
  • Fees: Discover doesn't require cash at closing or origination, nor a prepayment penalty, application or appraisal fees. Also, be prepared to be charged if your payment is late or sent back due to insufficient funds. 

Discover earns a 5 out of 5 for affordability due to its competitive APR and the absence of closing, origination, appraisal and application fees.

Availability: 4.2/5

  • Credit score: Discover’s minimum 680 credit score is 40 points higher than the minimum most lenders require; six-figure loans require an even higher score, of at least 700.
  • Loan minimum: Discover’s home equity loans start at $35,000, a bit high compared to the $5,000-$20,000 minimums other lenders set. Homeowners can also borrow up to 90 percent of the equity in their home.
  • Loan products: Discover offers first-lien and second-lien home equity loans with 10-, 15-, 20-, and 30-year terms — a pleasantly wide array of options. However, loans are the only product Discover carries (it does not offer home equity lines of credit, or HELOCS). 
  • Where to find: Discover’s home equity loans are available in every U.S. state except Maryland and Iowa.  

Discover offers flexible home equity loan term lengths and the ability to tap almost all of one’s home equity, but these strengths are offset by a high loan minimum and the absence of HELOCs, which pull it down to a 4.2 out of 5 for availability. 

Borrower experience: 2.9/5

  • Transparency: Discover posts a range of possible home equity loan rates on its website. Once starting the application process, you will be given a personalized quote.  
  • Convenience: Discover doesn’t have any branch locations, so you will have to apply for a home equity loan online or on the phone.  
  • Customer service: Discover’s customer service team is available online or by phone every day of the week, even on weekends. 

You can reach Discover’s customer service team online or on the phone every day. However, the company’s inability to offer in-person service or a dedicated loan officer (see “What consumers say,” below) pulls down its score to 2.9 out of 5.

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Bankrate insight

You can tap into your home equity — the difference between your home's worth and what you owe on your mortgage — with a home equity loan or a HELOC. With those funds, you can tackle a variety of expenses, like debt consolidation or home renovations. 

However, before you dive in, it's important to figure out your loan-to-value ratio (LTV). Lenders use your LTV to determine how much of your equity stake you can actually borrow. (It’s typically 80 percent, although some lenders allow you to access as much as 90 percent.) The amount of equity they’ll let you tap is one consideration when choosing a lender. Be it a retail bank, online lender or credit union, it may offer different home equity loan rates and terms, too. That’s why it’s important to shop around for the best deal.

Discover’s reputation

Discover Bank has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. For the second year in a row, the company ranked second in J.D. Power’s 2024 U.S. Consumer Lending Satisfaction Study, which measures customer satisfaction with consumer loan companies. 

What consumers say about Discover

On Bankrate, customers say applying for a Discover loan was “as easy as it could be,” their rates were competitive and the customer reps were top-notch. However, some customers expressed frustration at the lack of an assigned loan officer: “Be prepared to speak to a different person just about every time you call in.”

Discover home equity products offered  

Discover offers home equity loans between $35,000 and $500,000 with 10, 15, 20 and 30-year repayment terms.

How to qualify for a home equity loan with Discover 

Discover requires borrowers to have a FICO credit score of at least 680 to qualify for a home equity loan, as well as a history of responsible credit use and verifiable employment and income. There’s also a maximum debt-to-income (DTI) ratio — your monthly debt payments divided by your monthly gross income — of 43 percent.

Between your first mortgage and a Discover home equity loan, you can have a combined loan-to-value (CLTV) ratio of up to 90 percent (although the loan amount with that ratio is capped at $200,000). There are no minimum assets needed to close on the loan.

How to apply for a home equity loan with Discover

You can apply for a home equity loan with Discover online or by phone at 855-361-3435. Its customer service team is available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to midnight ET or Saturday or Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET.

Discover requires borrowers to have a FICO credit score of at least 680 to qualify for a home equity loan, as well as a history of responsible credit use and verifiable employment and income. There’s also a maximum debt-to-income (DTI) ratio — your monthly debt payments divided by your monthly gross income — of 43 percent.

Between your first mortgage and a Discover home equity loan, you can have a combined loan-to-value (CLTV) ratio of up to 90 percent (although the loan amount with that ratio is capped at $200,000). There are no minimum assets needed to close on the loan.

Compare Discover with other lenders

Selected lender
Discover logo
Discover
NMLS: 453156
Bankrate score
4.0
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Customer score
3.1
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Bankrate score
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Customer score
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Bankrate score
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Customer score
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Loan amount

$35,000-$500,000

Min. credit score required

680 (700 or higher for $150,000 or more)

Repayment terms

10 years to 30 years

Funds available in

Undisclosed

Recent customer review

DO NOT APPLY

Discover Home loans keep sending you letters, take all information, let you submit for 2-3 week over and over paperwork, and then they deny you with explanation they cannot take yo...

SL

Discover Home Loans customer ratings and reviews

NMLS: 453156

logo

3.1

Rating: 3.07 stars out of 5

44 ratings

Knowledge
Rating: 3.3 stars out of 5
Level of service
Rating: 3.4 stars out of 5
Professionalism
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Responsiveness
Rating: 3.4 stars out of 5

59% of customers would recommend this lender.

of 34 reviews

The consumer reviews posted on Bankrate.com ("Bankrate") are individual, subjective opinions of reviewers, and not of Bankrate. Bankrate does not endorse any of the opinions expressed by reviewers or any responses to reviews.

Bankrate cannot guarantee or verify the accuracy of the opinions shared by individual reviewers, and reserves the right to reject or remove any review, at any time, for any reason at Bankrate’s sole discretion, including but not limited to those that Bankrate deems inappropriate, fraudulent, invalid, irrelevant, or otherwise outside the parameters of the Bankrate Review Guidelines, the Privacy Policy, or the Terms of Use.

In addition to collecting reviews on-site, Bankrate collaborated with third-party Slice MR to survey 450 users nationwide in July 2024. Bankrate and Slice MR collected, averaged and presented responses to nine questions. Users received an incentive for their feedback. Responses are based on individual experiences, and therefore cannot be verified for accuracy. Submissions with user ratings that are materially inconsistent with written sentiment have been removed. User ratings are unedited and have not been reviewed or approved by lenders, nor do these ratings reflect Bankrate’s own reviews of these lenders.

To help serve you with relevant information, the consumer reviews shown below are limited to only those that this advertiser has received during the past 12 months.

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