We have a WaMu equity credit line on our home. Like many, we use it for emergencies or projects, not as a mortgage. It is the only loan recorded against our house.

In November WaMu decreased the credit line when our appraised value dropped from 443k to 419k. No problem, 250k was still about 200k more than we were likely to ever use.

Yesterday our credit line was suspended. Okay, I understand that the bank might be nervous about further erosion in home values, but to shut down our line of credit totally? Wow.

I asked if they could simply reduce the line of credit to 100k. Nope. Gotta have an appraisal. I told them them my appraisal was that WaMu / Chase wasn’t worthy of my business.

We’ll be moving our accounts, though I think I’ll leave the suspended line of credit. It has a balance of about 3k. I think I’ll pay that down to a level where the interest they earn is clearly less than the cost of keeping the account alive.