Can I get a home equity loan on a fixer?

Generally the only requirement for a house to be mortgageable is that it has value. (An exception might be if it's uninsurable for some reason, but that's pretty rare.) The other side of the coin for obtaining a mortgage is that you have to be trustworthy enough for a bank to give a loan to you. If you have at least mediocre credit, with a paid off home getting a home equity loan should be a slam dunk. Typically you can borrow up to 85% with a HELOC, minus whatever amount you currently owe with your mortgage, which fortunately in your case is $0.

I suppose had you known you were going to need to do this, you might have been slightly better off getting a small mortgage when you purchased, so that you could use the leftover cash to do the repairs. The advantage of the mortgage over the HELOC is slightly better rates, but at least with the HELOC you won't have to start paying any interest until the day you draw the money, so you've already saved money on interest by not needing it until now.

The answers posted do not match my experience in the past. They may be correct in some scenarios but lenders I have worked with have not been as liberal. The following reference seems to most match what I had found -even though it is written for the UK

https://www.auctionhouse.co.uk/guide/what-makes-a-property-unmortgageable

What makes a property unmortgageable? It is always sensible to check on the mortgageability of a property before bidding on it. But as a rule of thumb, the following situations will likely make a property unmortgageable.

• Properties without a kitchen or bathroom.
• Properties with any kind of structural defect, damp, dry or wet rot.
• Properties close to mining works, areas of landfill, areas of recent flooding or subsidence. • Leasehold properties with a short lease, typically less than 70 years, or a defective lease. • Where there are boundary disputes or where planning applications have not been applied for correctly.
• Derelict property or where part of the building is in severe disrepair and needs demolishing.
• Properties of non-standard construction. Standard construction has brick or stone walls with a roof made of slate or tile, so anything that differs from this will be classed as Non-Standard.
• Some properties with sitting tenants or regulated tenancies.
• All properties with a value below a threshold, sometimes stated as £40,000.

In particular the item:

Properties with any kind of structural defect, damp, dry or wet rot.

That is more restrictive than the other answer and comment - and also more along the lines of my experience (with a couple dozen lenders in several states). I'm not sure if that means there do actually exist lenders as lenient as the other answer suggests. I will be looking more into that.