For homeowners who need cash but either can’t charm a lender or don't want payments, there are options. But few consider this particular option: the Home Equity Sharing Agreement (HESA).
Home Equity Partners (HEQ) is one of a handful of purveyors of HESAs in Canada. We caught up with its CEO and founder, Shael Weinreb, to pin down who they make sense for, and who should run in the other direction.
Weinreb's Inspiration
"HESAs are one of the first non-debt investment-type products for Canadians to access equity in their homes,” Weinreb explains. His inspiration for starting this business was a major bank, the one that denied his 80-year-old, retired father a 10% LTV HELOC on a $2 million home.
"My father desperately needed the money at the time," Weinreb recalls. "He was declined despite being a loyal customer at the bank for 40 years. It put a lot of strain on our family."
So Weinreb decided to launch a product his dad could have qualified for at the time, the HESA.
