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Accessing the equity in your home can help you move forward on your financial goals, whether you’re planning major renovations, consolidating high-interest debt, or building long-term stability. Cash-out refinances have long been a familiar option, but rising mortgage rates have prompted many homeowners to explore alternatives, including home equity investments (HEIs).

In this guide, Splitero explains how each option works, what makes them different, and how to decide which one may be the right fit for your financial situation.

Key Takeaways

• A cash-out refinance replaces your existing mortgage with a new, larger one and gives you the difference as cash. This typically results in a new interest rate, a new loan term, and a new monthly payment.
• A home equity investment (HEI) provides a lump-sum payment in exchange for a share of the home’s future value, with no monthly payments or interest. An HEI does not replace your existing mortgage.
• Cash-out refinances function like traditional loans, with repayment based on interest rates and a fixed term, while HEIs operate as investments, which are repurchased later based on your home’s value.
• Both options help you access your home’s value but differ in cost structure, qualification requirements, and how repayment or repurchase is handled.

What is a cash-out refinance, and how does it work?

A cash-out refinance allows you to replace your current mortgage with a new, larger one and receive the difference in cash. Unlike a rate-and-term refinance (which simply changes your interest rate or loan term), a cash-out refinance increases your loan balance.

At closing, the lender pays off your existing mortgage and issues a new loan for a higher amount. You will receive the extra funds, and your monthly payment, interest rate, or loan term changes based on current market rates, your credit score, and other qualification requirements your lender may have.

According to the Intercontinental Exchange’s August 2025 Mortgage Monitor report, this strategy has been increasingly popular. Cash-out refinances accounted for 59% of all refinance transactions in Q2 2025, and those borrowers withdrew an average of $94,000 in home equity. However, those borrowers also increased their monthly mortgage payment by about $590 on average.

Pros

• Potentially lower rate: For homeowners whose existing rate is above today’s market rate, a cash-out refinance can lower borrowing costs while also providing access to equity.
• Familiar repayment structure: A cash-out refinance keeps your financing consolidated into one predictable mortgage payment over a set term, which some homeowners find easier to manage than juggling multiple payments or alternative structures.
• Opportunity to restructure your mortgage term: A refinance allows you to select a new term length. Some homeowners choose a longer term to reduce their monthly payment, even when taking additional cash, while others use a shorter term to pay off their

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When winter arrives, dropping temperatures and dry indoor air become part of daily life. While colder months often come with cozy comforts — extra blankets, warmer pajamas, longer nights — the lack of moisture in the air can quietly undermine both your sleep quality and overall wellness.

Winter air holds significantly less humidity than warmer seasons, and once indoor heating systems turn on, moisture levels can fall even further. This combination creates an especially dry sleep environment, which can affect everything from your breathing to your skin and, ultimately, how well you rest at night. Naturepedic explains why.

How Dry Winter Air Can Impact Your Health

Low humidity does more than make the air feel uncomfortable. Dry indoor air has been linked to:

• Irritation of the respiratory system
• Congestion
• Dry skin
• Increased susceptibility to seasonal illness

And more. Health experts note that winter illness tends to spread more easily for two main reasons. First, people spend more time indoors in enclosed spaces, and lower humidity allows some airborne viruses to remain active in the air for longer periods. In a dry environment, your body’s natural defenses may not function as effectively as they should.

Moreover, the human body is made up of roughly 50 to 70 percent water, and it depends on moisture to maintain healthy systems. When the air around you lacks humidity, your body can lose moisture more quickly, especially while you sleep.

The Role of Moisture in Your Body’s Natural Defenses

One of the first places dry air makes itself known is in your nose and throat.

Your nasal passages are lined with mucous membranes that rely on adequate moisture to work properly. These membranes act as a filtration system, helping trap dust, allergens and other airborne particles before they enter the body. When humidity is too low, these membranes can dry out and become less effective. This can lead to irritation, sore throats and a higher vulnerability to respiratory discomfort during the winter months.

Dry air can also affect your skin and eyes, which depend on moisture to maintain their protective barriers. When skin becomes excessively dry or cracked, it may be less effective at keeping irritants out — another reason winter wellness often starts with your environment.

Can Dry Air Make It Harder to Sleep?

Sleep is a time when the body restores itself, but dry winter air can interfere with that process. Humidity in the bedroom can contribute to nasal dryness, throat irritation and nighttime discomfort — all conditions with the potential to disrupt restful sleep.

Your body already naturally loses moisture while you sleep through breathing and perspiration, which is why many people wake up feeling thirsty. In a dry environment, that moisture loss can be more pronounced, potentially leading to dehydration, Read more

By Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen, CNN

(CNN) — How should a military commander respond if they determine they have received an unlawful order?

Request to retire — and refrain from resigning in protest, which could be seen as a political act, or picking a fight to get fired.

That was the previously unreported guidance that Brig. Gen. Eric Widmar, the top lawyer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave to the country’s top general, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, in November, according to sources familiar with the discussion.

Caine had just seen a video that included six Democratic lawmakers publicly urging US troops to disobey illegal orders. He asked Widmar, according to the sources, what the latest guidance was on how to determine whether an order was lawful and how a commander should reply if it is not.

Widmar responded that they should consult with their legal adviser if they’re unsure, the sources said. But ultimately, if they determine that an order is illegal, they should consider requesting retirement.

The guidance sheds new light on how top military officials are thinking about an issue that has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks, as lawmakers and legal experts have repeatedly questioned the legality of the US military’s counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean including intense scrutiny of a “double-tap” strike that deliberately killed survivors on September 2.

Caine is not in the chain of command. But he is closely involved in operations, including those in SOUTHCOM, and is often tasked with presenting military options to the president—more so than Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CNN has reported.

The Joint Staff declined to comment for this story.

Several senior officers who reportedly expressed concerns about the boat strikes, including former US Southern Command commander Adm. Alvin Holsey and Lt. Gen. Joe McGee, the former director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Joint Staff, have retired early in recent months.

Widmar’s advice to Caine was meant to help inform the chairman’s discussions with senior military officials should the issue come up, the sources said. The Democrats’ video had become headline news, enraging Hegseth and sparking debates across the country.

A separate official familiar with military legal advice said that it is not uncommon for lawyers to urge servicemembers to consider leaving the force if they believe they’re being asked to do something they are personally uncomfortable with, but it’s typically handled on a case-by-case basis and tailored to the facts of the situation.

Other current and former US officials, however, including those who have served as miliary lawyers in the Judge Advocate General corps, stressed that broadly encouraging servicemembers to quietly retire — if they’re eligible — rather than voice dissent in the face of a potentially illegal order risks perpetuating a culture of silence and lack of accountability.

“A commissioned officer has every right to say, ‘this is wrong,’ and shouldn’t be expected to quietly and silently walk away just because they’re given a free pass to do so,” said a former senior defense official who left the Pentagon earlier this year.

More than a dozen senior officers have either been fired or retired early since Trump took office in January, an unusually hi

By Clare Duffy, CNN

New York (CNN) — There’s a giant question hanging over the tech industry: How long will its massive investments in AI infrastructure really last?

Tech giants are shelling out hundreds of billions of dollars on artificial intelligence infrastructure — mainly, data centers and the chips that power them. It’s an investment they say will set the stage for AI to overhaul our economy, our jobs and even our personal relationships.

This year alone, tech firms are expected to pour $400 billion into AI-related capital expenditures.

A portion of that will almost certainly put a recurring strain on companies’ balance sheets. And for companies hinging their future on AI, the question of how frequently they’ll have to upgrade or replace advanced chips is a critical one — especially since there’s growing skepticism of whether AI will produce returns large or quickly enough to recoup both existing investments and cover future infrastructure costs.

That’s fueling concerns around an AI bubble — worries that the hype around and spending on AI is out of sync with its true value. Those worries come as the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks make up around 35% of the value of the S&P 500, raising questions about what an AI crash would mean for the economy.

“The extent to which all of this build out is a bubble partially depends on the lifespan of these investments,” said Tim DeStefano, associate research professor at Georgetown’s McDonough business school.

Chip lifecycles

It’s unclear how long top-of-the-line graphics processing units (GPUs), the chips most often used for AI training and processing, will remain useful.

Several tech experts told CNN that they estimate AI chips can be used to train large language models between 18 months and three years. But the chips could continue being used for less intensive tasks for several more years, they added.

In contrast, central processing units (CPUs) used in traditional non-AI data centers are typically replaced every five to seven years, the experts said.

That’s partially because training AI models exposes the chips to significant strain and heat, wearing them down faster. About 9% of GPUs will fail over the course of a year, compared with around 5% of CPUs, said David Bader, professor of data science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Subsequent generations of AI chips are also rapidly improving and becoming more efficient, meaning it might not be economical to continue running AI workloads on older chips even if they’re functional.

Different experts offer slightly different estimates. DeStefano said AI chips will likely break down after about five to 10 years of use, but their economic lifespan is only around three to five years.

Meanwhile, Bader estimates GPUs can be used to train AI models for 18 to 24 months. But he said older chips can still handle tasks like processing users’ AI queries, known as inference, for around five more years, extending their value.

Nvidia, the largest provider of AI chips, says its CUDA software system enables customers to update existing chips’ software, potentially delaying the need to upgrade to the latest product.

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said on the company’s latest earnings call last month that GPUs “shipped six years ago are still running at full utilization today” because of its CUDA system.

But whether chips last two years or six years, tech companies still face the same question: “Where’s t

By Holmes Lybrand, Evan Perez, John Miller, CNN

(CNN) — Five days after an extensive manhunt began, law enforcement closed in on the Brown University shooting suspect after the emergence of apparent ties between the attack Saturday at the Providence, Rhode Island, school and the killing two days later of an MIT professor at his Massachusetts home.

As investigators began looking into the Monday shooting at the professor’s home, the FBI initially said there was no known connection between that crime and the mass shooting at the Ivy League institution about 50 miles away. But a rental car may have provided investigators with a potential link – a breakthrough that led to a search inside a New Hampshire storage facility, where authorities said Thursday night the suspect was found dead.

“Tonight, our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said at a news conference late Thursday, where officials identified the suspect as 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente, a former Brown University student and a Portuguese national with no criminal record in the US. Authorities believe he acted alone, Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar L. Perez Jr. said.

Nuno Loureiro, the MIT professor fatally shot at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, was also a Portuguese national, and FBI Special Agent Ted Docks said Thursday night authorities believe the two men attended school in Lisbon at the same time.

At a separate news conference Thursday, US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Leah Foley, said Neves Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic program in Portugal between 1995 and 2000.

Indeed, school records show the suspect attended the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, in the 1990s at the same time as Loureiro.

Investigators believe the suspect specifically targeted Loureiro, one law enforcement official told CNN. But they do not currently believe the two people killed at Brown – where the suspect was a student in the early 2000s – were direct targets. Police said they were still working to determine a motive for the university shooting, which came as students were busy studying for final exams.

Tips helped move the investigation forward

Court documents released Thursday revealed apparently ominous sightings of the suspect in the Barus & Holley building, where the shooting took place, multiple times in the weeks prior to the attack. A campus custodian noticed a person – wearing a surgical mask and whose clothing matched that of the individual seen in surveillance video released by police – at least twice since November 28, the affidavit said. The sightings happened between 3 p.m. and sunset, investigators said in the document.

According to another law enforcement source, investigators talked with a member of the Brown University maintenance staff, who saw a suspicious person inside the Barus & Holley building after hours the night before the shooting.

The maintenance worker followed the person, who went outside and got into a vehicle. The worker wrote down the vehicle’s license plate number but did not immediately report the incident because it was unclear whether the person had broken into the building or taken anything, the official said.

After the shooting, however, the Brown maintenance worker shared the information with others, who brought it to the attention of Providence police. They, along with the FBI and other agencies, t