A $500,000 house, in Point's own worked example, enters the math at $365,000. The roughly 27% risk adjustment that produces that number is what a homeowner gives up in exchange for cash that carries no interest and no monthly bill. It's also the part of a home equity investment that catches people off guard, and the part that takes the longest to understand.
Cash Now for a Share of Future Appreciation
Point is a fintech company based in Palo Alto, California, founded in 2015. Instead of lending against your equity, it buys a stake in it: you get a lump sum now, and Point gets a preset share of your home's future appreciation later. The company says it has funded more than $1.4 billion in contracts for more than 14,000 homeowners.
There's no monthly payment and no interest. Settlement happens when you sell, when you refinance, when you buy the investment back on your own, or at the end of the 30-year term, whichever comes first. Point does record a lien on the property to secure its position.
| Term | Detail |
|---|---|
| Investment amount | $30,000 to $600,000 |
| Contract length | 30 years |
| Max loan-to-value | 70% |
| Minimum credit score | 500 (offers capped at $500,000 for scores under 600) |
| Interest | None |
| Monthly payments | None |
| Prepayment penalty | None |
| Equity required | 20% to 40% |
| Minimum property value | More than $140,000 |
The Appreciation Starting Value Is Set Below Market Value
Point doesn't use your appraised value as the baseline for measuring gains. It applies a risk adjustment first, producing what it calls the Appreciation Starting Value. In Point's example, a $500,000 home carries a roughly 27% adjustment, putting the starting line at $365,000. The size of that discount varies with property and market factors.
The practical effect: your home has to climb past that lowered baseline before any appreciation counts as yours. Point frames the adjustment as protection for its investment and as what makes penalty-free early buyback possible. Either way, it does more than anything else to set what the arrangement costs you.
Fees Come Off the Top of the Lump Sum
The processing fee runs 3% to 3.9% of the investment, with a $1,000 minimum, and it comes out of the money before it reaches you. On a $50,000 investment, that's $1,950. On a $25,000 investment, the minimum applies, so the fee is $1,000 rather than a percentage.
Other charges:
- Escrow fee: $500 to $700
- One-time credit report fee: $40 to $50
- One-time flood certificate fee: $10
Someone who needs a specific amount, $50,000 to replace a roof, say, will see less than that hit the bank account, because the processing fee is netted out first.
How Point's Share Adds Up Over 30 Years
Point's own illustration runs the full term. Start with that $500,000 home, a $365,000 Appreciation Starting Value, and a $50,000 investment minus the 3.9% fee. Using an average appreciation rate of about 3.5% a year with no downturns, the home reaches roughly $1.4 million after 30 years. At that sale price, the homeowner's share is $1.125 million and Point's share is $278,000: the original $50,000 plus $228,000 in appreciation.
Depreciation cuts both ways. With the same contract, a sale after five years at a fallen value of $362,100 leaves the homeowner with $312,700 and Point with $49,500. Point also applies a Homeowner Protection Cap, a ceiling on what you owe even if your share of the appreciation would otherwise exceed it.
Qualifying Takes a 500 Credit Score and No Income Documentation
The underwriting is the most accessible part of the product. Beyond the score and equity thresholds in the table above, Point also asks for:
- An eligible property type in an area Point serves
- No recent foreclosures or bankruptcies
- Enough available equity to support at least $30,000
Income isn't a factor. That's a real difference from a HELOC, where lenders typically weigh income, existing debt, and equity of at least 15% to 20%. The trade-off sits on the equity side: a 40% requirement at the top of Point's range is steep compared with what a lender might accept.
Availability Is Region by Region, Not Statewide
Point operates in select regions of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. Being in a listed state isn't enough on its own; coverage is set region by region.
From a 60-Second Prequalification to Funding in Three to Eight Weeks
- Prequalify in as little as 60 seconds. You submit your address, and Point generates an estimated home value from public records. This step doesn't affect your credit.
- Provide your mortgage balance if asked, so Point can gauge your equity, the difference between what you owe and what the home is worth.
- Review the initial offer. Accepting is optional.
- Complete the full application with documents: mortgage statements, identification, and payoff statements if the funds are going toward existing high-interest debt.
- Sit through the appraisal. Point arranges an independent third-party appraisal after its initial review, and this is the slowest stage. The company says closing can happen in as little as three weeks, but it can stretch to eight before the money arrives.
A second appraisal may be needed at the end of the term or when you buy the investment back.
Refinancing and Remodeling Get Complicated by the Lien
A future lender pulling title sees Point's claim there. Point itself sets no conditions on refinancing, but the bank writing the new loan can make paying Point off a condition of funding. Adding a HELOC or a home equity loan runs in the same sequence rather than in parallel: settle with Point, then borrow.
Improvements come out of the homeowner's pocket and then count toward Point's share. Point calculates repayment on the home's value as it stands, with no deduction for what a remodel added, so paying for a new kitchen can enlarge the check Point eventually receives. The work itself needs no sign-off from Point.
One more thing worth planning for. If you're still in the house at the end of the 30 years, the buyback has to be funded somehow, from savings, a sale, or new financing. An HEI doesn't show up as a monthly obligation, but it does sit on the title until it's settled.
An A+ BBB Rating, 4.7 on Trustpilot, and What the Complaints Say
Point holds an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and a 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot across more than 4,100 reviews. The negative reviews cluster around a consistent set of issues:
- Numbers that shrank between the initial quote and the final offer, or a pre-approval that turned into a denial
- Appraised values customers believed undershot their homes
- Contract terms customers judged unfavorable once they read them
- Waits for funding that ran past what customers were led to expect
- Difficulty getting answers from customer service
How Point Compares With Hometap, Unison, Unlock, and Home Equity Debt
Hometap, Unison, and Unlock all run the same basic model: cash now for a share of future value, settled whether the home rises or falls. The differences that matter most are the settlement window and the starting value.
| Company | Settlement window | Starting value adjustment |
|---|---|---|
| Point | Up to 30 years | About 27% below current value in Point's example |
| Unison | Up to 30 years | 5% below appraised value |
| Hometap | Within 10 years | Not stated |
| Unlock | Within 10 years | Not stated |
A shorter window can suit a homeowner who expects to sell within a decade anyway. A longer one leaves room to wait out a soft market. The category itself is still small. CFPB data shows the four largest HEI companies wrote 11,000 contracts totaling $1.1 billion in securitized volume between January and October of 2024.
Debt-based options change the trade entirely. A home equity loan gives you fixed monthly payments of principal and interest and keeps all of your appreciation, but it needs good credit and a low debt-to-income ratio, and the lender can foreclose. A HELOC is a revolving line with a draw period of usually five to 10 years, interest-only payments during that stretch, a variable rate, and interest charged only on what you use.
It comes with the same credit and income review.
The Bill Arrives at Settlement, Priced by the Calendar
Point's two illustrations, taken together, show the range. Fifty thousand dollars in, $278,000 out at a $1.4 million sale after 30 years, $228,000 of that appreciation. The same contract sold in year five into a fallen market at $362,100 hands Point $49,500, close to what it put in. Identical terms, identical fee, and the distance between those outcomes was set by what the market did and when the house changed hands.
That's what the appraisal, the fee schedule, and the $365,000 starting value all feed into. A homeowner signs the contract without knowing the final figure, because the figure depends on the years between funding and settlement and on which trigger arrives first: sale, refinance, buyback, or the end of the term. There's no rate to hold up against a HELOC's, and nothing shows up in the mail each month. It's one number, calculated once, long after the cash has been spent.
