When Christel Ventura wanted to build a pool in her backyard, she chose to take out a home equity line of credit (HELOC) to help cover the costs. As the assistant vice president of consumer lending for GTE Financial in Tampa, Ventura was well aware of the differences between home equity loans and HELOCs, as well as the special introductory interest rate GTE was offering on its HELOCs.
“When I did the line of credit, it was interest-only and a 1.99 percent interest rate for the first 12 months,”…
