Refinance Second Mortgage

[it99]

I have 130K balance on 142K house bougt. Just assessed at 165K.

I have a second mortgage for 45K balance. I think it orignally 55K so must have gotten a 115 loan or something at 10.5%. Do I have any chance of refinancning the second mortgage at all? Prefereably I'd like to move as much credit card debt onto it as possible.

Thanks

[jIM_Ohio]

In general you want to keep 20% equity, so on a 165k house, the bank will want 33k equity or to borrow no more than 132k.

If you have high credit card debt, you are better off looking at a budget and making cuts and changing behavior. If you only look to borrow money, you will never actually get out of debt.

[wincrasher]

Did you just wake up from a 2 year coma?

You have a house worth maybe $165k, yet owe $175k on it. Plus you have a pile of credit card debt.

Hmmmm.....

[Seeker]

From a previous it99 posting:

Have 131k mort, 42k 2nd mort, 17k auto, 40k credit card debt(12-16%). Income 112k.
We've been just doing min payments on credit cards because money has been tight.

You have a family of three, you, your SO, and a child?
Income of 112k.

You cannot borrow against the house, because you already own more than its' current value. 175k owed, and assessed at 165k. No bank will let you borrow more on the house.

You are trying to get rid of 12-16% interest rate on the CC debt. A good goal.

If you owe 17k on an auto, you might consider selling, and buying a less expensive car and eliminating that debt as much as possible and then allocating those extra payment dollars to your CC debts.

Do you have other "things" that you can sell?

Your income level should not a problem (many people do well on less income). So, any kind of help that we can provide could only be done if you post your budget.

Jim_Ohio said it best:

If you have high credit card debt, you are better off looking at a budget and making cuts and changing behavior. If you only look to borrow money, you will never actually get out of debt.

Moving debts around don't really resolve the issue.

List where you spend your $'s each month? And how much each of those expenses are. Same with debts.

[Brad]

Great Reply Post Seeker.

[it99]

My motivation for moving more debt onto the 2nd mortgage is that I've just paid down 10K of my current 2nd mortgage which I get a tax break on the interest I'm paying. I would love to move 10K of my credit card debt onto the second mortgage because it's a big tax savings. We're definately not doing this so we use our credit cards more.

[LuxLiving]

If money is tight on your salary, you perhaps need more budgeting assistance. I agree with jim_Ohio & Seeker, let us see your budget and see if we can't help you with that portion of the program. With your salary and debts and some serious buckling down I think I could be out of debt in 3 to 4 years time.

[it99]

I just started using Yodlee to keep track of all my accounts and where the money goes that past couple of weeks. It's great for doing budgets auto-categorizes things or you can create your own category rules based upon text in the transaction. I'm going to see once I reach a full month where everythign is going.

[James00]

Nice idea as I was also looking for advice. And through reading this I got good ideas.

[snafu]

OP, keep in mind most computer budget programs merely tells you where your money WENT, rather than how best to allocate incoming/future funds to get the most Bang for the Buck!