| Some financial "gurus" have advised against this
because you are turning unsecured debt into secured debt. While this is
basically true the fact is that defaulted unsecured debt can be secured
against real property very quickly once the debtor is sued for it and a
judgment is received.
Remember, you have a three (business) day right of
recission before you can receive the cash from your refinance.
If your decide to consolidate credit card debt in
the state of Texas you must wait 12 days from the time of application
to close on your cash out loan, also Texas Cash-Out loans are limited
to an 80% LTV (Loan to Value). This law only applies to homestead
properties and it may be different if the property is a second home or
investment property.
In order to decide if a debt consolidation is your
best action, you should figure what you are paying now and how that
will translate in the length of time it will take you to pay off those
credit cards. You may find that rolling those debts into your mortgage
will save you thousands of dollars in interest payments.
A mortgage agent can help you decide if refinancing
credit card debt into a mortgage is your best option. Using financial
calculators available, they can compare how long and how much it will
cost you to pay off credit card debt using your current monthly
payments vs refinancing the debt into a new mortgage. Very often the
monthly and lifetime savings is large.
Remember not to stop making regular payments
towards credit card debts simply because you are in the process of
consolidating them. Defaults and late payments can negatively impact
your credit and jeopardize the consolidation loan.
If you are planning on selling your ome inthe near
future, you may want to rethink consolidating. You need to make sure
that you have enough equity to pay for realtor's commision and down
payment or closing costs on the new home.
If you have gotten buried in a hole with credit
card debt it could be a necessity to refinance your home and pay off
your credit card debt. It has been known to save thousands of dollars.
On the other side of the spectrum, if you only have 5 months left on a
credit card bill it is note wise decision to bury that into a mortgage.
You can consolidate your credit card debt through
use of your first mortgage or by obtaining a second mortgage or a home
equity line of credit, also known as a HELOC. A HELOC works with the
same basic principals of a credit card. It is a revolving account that
as you pay the equity line down, you have that money available to you
to use again. With a second mortgage you simply have a set term (5
years, 10 years, 15 years, etc...) that you will pay on the loan for
and when it is paid off you are relinquished of your obligation to this
debt and the account closes. All 3 (1st mortgagae, 2nd mortgage or
HELOC) are excellent choices for debt consolidation but you and your
mortgager broker will need to figure out which one makes the most sense
for your particular situation.
Consolidating credit car debt into your mortgage
can save a homeowner hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dollars
per month by lowering their total monthly obligations. When you
consolidate credit cards into your mortgage you also are able to lower
your interest rates on those credit cards which essentially saves you a
lot of money but you are able to write off the interest on your tax
returns from your mortgage and you can not do this with your credit
cards.
If you want to use a refinance loan to consolidate
some of your debts, you're going to have to borrow more than the actual
amount remaining on the loan that you're refinancing. This additional
amount will be used to pay off those debts that are being consolidated
and will affect the monthly payment of your refinanced loan. By doing
this, however, you can make your finances and outstanding debts much
more manageable and will likely become debt-free much faster.
Another option if you do not have enough equity in
your home to pay off your credit cards is to refinance to a pay option
ARM. The money you can save by making minimum payments on your mortgage
can be applied to your credit cards to help pay them down quicker.
When deciding to refinance for debt consolidation
you might want to consider how long you will have to pay your credit
cards if you are only making the monthly minimums. This can take you
much longer in most cases than paying on a traditional 30 year fixed
mortgage.
During most refinances you will be able to skip a
month, or two, of your mortgage payment. It would be a good idea to
take some, or all, of that payment and apply it to your credit card
debt.
|