Taking equity out of ones home, another thing you can't do here (and people wouldn't understand). Of course we saw in 2009 that it led to plenty of people losing their home...
You can't easily do it in Texas too because locals were burned on this before anyone else in US (in 1987) when people were mass-mailing the keys to their houses to lenders, apparently.
Typically, no cash-out refinancing. I know some people in CA that did multiple cash outs and now have a gigantic mortgage.
Still, there is some equity, but the cushion is much smaller that it should have been otherwise.