39
votes
Can I use my paid-for home as collateral for a consolidation loan to pay off outstanding bills?
Plus one to Alexandre for pointing out this is possible. It is also possible to run with scissors, and I would recommend neither.
Your money problems are very small and doing something so dramatic ...
- 78.5k
27
votes
Accepted
Do I lose any rights, or run into any disadvantages, by consolidating my student loans?
You lose significant rights doing a private consolidation of federal loans.
You lose few if any rights doing a federal consolidation. Because you anticipate your employer will pay off all of your ...
17
votes
Accepted
In layman's terms, what is balance transfer?
Typically you can use credit card balance transfers to consolidate some, or all, of your other loan balances in one place. The interest rate might be lower. Some prefer to make one payment rather ...
- 78.5k
16
votes
Someone please help with my credit situation
Looking back
I have a car loan paid in full and even paid off early, and 2 personal loans paid in full from my credit union that don't seem to reflect in a positive way and all 3 were in good ...
- 21k
14
votes
Can I use my paid-for home as collateral for a consolidation loan to pay off outstanding bills?
Yes this is possible. The most likely tool to use in this case would be a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). This is a line of credit for which the full amount is backed by home equity (difference ...
- 2,279
11
votes
In layman's terms, what is balance transfer?
Since you are not paying the full balance off each month you are carrying a balance from month to month. That balance is being charged some interest rate X.
With a balance transfer, the new credit ...
- 2,427
9
votes
Debt Consolidation
You'll be paying more interest for a longer time if you include the loan in the consolidation. My calculation suggests you'll pay $2,485.29 more in interest on the loan if you consolidate it to the ...
- 70.8k
6
votes
Accepted
Refinancing Student Loans
The weighted average of the interest charged to your loans comes to 5.73%, so mathematically the refi does work in your favor, but only slightly, about a half a percent.
Are there other factors in ...
- 78.5k
6
votes
Do I lose any rights, or run into any disadvantages, by consolidating my student loans?
You have to weight the risks and gains for each variant:
For federal loans, there might be some partial or total forgiveness one day. Could be you get something from that, but could also be that it ...
- 37.8k
5
votes
Chinese Brother-in-Law in Debt Trouble - What can Chinese Citizens do to Manage?
His debt is sixty monthly incomes, five years worth. That's substantially more than my first house was. And I had 25 years time to pay it back, his lenders ask for monthly payments where 20 months ...
- 23.8k
5
votes
In layman's terms, what is balance transfer?
Note: the question is tagged united kingdom, this is a UK focussed answer practices elsewhere may be different).
A balance transfer moves your debt from one credit card to another.
This can be a ...
- 2,974
4
votes
In layman's terms, what is balance transfer?
A balance transfer is paying one debt instrument with another. While this is typically seen in credit card offers it isn't necessarily confined to credit cards.
Obviously the only reason to do this ...
- 49k
4
votes
Debt Consolidation
I agree with Hart CO's excellent answer; you are much better off financially in your current situation than if you consolidate as stated. If they are willing to give you a loan for $37.5K at 11.59% ...
- 47.3k
3
votes
What is the expected effect to credit of refinancing my student debt?
tl;dr; Do the refi and don't worry about your credit score.
The refi as you described can save you almost $500 in the first year, and likely thousands over the course of the loan. The slight dip to ...
- 47.3k
3
votes
In layman's terms, what is balance transfer?
From the card issuer's point of view, the purpose of balance transfers is very simple. A credit card company wants you to owe them more money, so they will make more profit getting more interest ...
- 4,473
3
votes
Fixed term or variable term for a student loan of 155,000 with the ability to switch between them
Fixed term or variable term for a student loan of 155,000
This is more opinion based. It is like predicting what would happen in future.
From the current number;
10 year variable at 4.26% = $1,596.66/...
- 57.2k
3
votes
Fixed term or variable term for a student loan of 155,000 with the ability to switch between them
You're choosing between a variable rate and a fixed rate. As such, you are basically betting whether interest rates will rise or not. You're going to pay a good bit more with the fixed rate in the ...
- 35.9k
3
votes
Can I use my paid-for home as collateral for a consolidation loan to pay off outstanding bills?
Others have covered the usual vehicles for getting money out of a property.
There's another category of home loan called a hard money loan. It would take a lot of inquiries to find a hard money loan ...
- 167
2
votes
Can I use my paid-for home as collateral for a consolidation loan to pay off outstanding bills?
You can.
You can take out a conventional mortgage and keep the cash. A mortgage is nothing but a secured loan against your home.
You can open a HELOC and treat it as a negative-equity bank-account.
...
- 3,283
2
votes
Refinancing Student Loans
Ok, so, you don't say how much time is left on the current loans, so I had to make some assumptions. The $297 current minimum payment for loan #4 suggests 6 years left, but that doesn't jive with the $...
- 2,280
2
votes
Do I lose any rights, or run into any disadvantages, by consolidating my student loans?
The main advantage you'll lose by consolidating your debts is that you lose the potential options from selectively repaying specific ones early and (unless the rules changed from when I did it) for ...
2
votes
Do I lose any rights, or run into any disadvantages, by consolidating my student loans?
Assuming you stay with the employer for 2 years and they pay your consolidated loan for 2 years then the terms of the consolidated loan practically do not matter.
The only possible fine-print item ...
- 8,573
2
votes
Consolidating Unsecured Debt with Secured Loan
Assuming that your car is worth significantly more than $23k (otherwise you'll be underwater soon), and your income is more than double the value of the car (a rule of thumb as to whether a car is ...
- 140k
1
vote
Should I consolidate my loans amidst political talks of forgiving student debt?
would consolidating my loans disqualify me from receiving this kind of aid?
No one knows any details about what any hypothetical loan forgiveness plan would or would not cover. Would the Government ...
- 140k
1
vote
Accepted
Can I use a 529 plan to pay a refinanced student loan?
Short answer: yes, you can use a 529 plan to pay for refinanced student loans. As long as a loan is eligible for the student loan interest deduction it is also eligible to be payed out of the 529.
...
- 10k
1
vote
(U.S. Federal) Student loan consolidation process craziness
Its been a while since I had a student loan, but what you have here is a poor customer service organization. It happens, and it seems like with the student loan industry, it happens more frequently ...
- 78.5k
1
vote
Consolidating Unsecured Debt with Secured Loan
The numbers look good. I just did something similar myself: I recently married and my wife had a bunch of debts, including a $14,000 loan at 14%. I took out a home equity loan with an introductory ...
- 22.9k
1
vote
Accepted
Are the "personal loan" entities legit or a bit bogus?
Check out the interest rates and other terms.
Lets look at it from a business perspective. For that kind of money, people normally go to a bank and get a great (now days) interest rate. So, who is ...
- 534
1
vote
Refinancing Student Loans
If it were me, I would do the consolidation simply because one payment every month is easier than managing 4 different payments that could likely change loan servicers periodically. The total ...
- 47.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible