Saturday, 19 September 2009

Re-Financing To Consolidate Debt

By Jantje Rostels

Some homeowners opt to re-finance to consolidate their existing debts. With this type of option, the homeowner can consolidate higher interest debts such as credit card debts under a lower interest home loan.

A debt consolidation loan enables the homeowner to use the existing equity in their home as collateral to secure a low interest loan which is large enough to repay the existing balance on the home as well as a number of other debts such as credit card debt, car loans, student loans or any other debts the homeowner may have.

So what exactly is called debt consolidation? Well, when you have a lot of existing debts and you want to refinance your home to get a lower interest rate on these loans, it is called consolidating debt. Actually it is refinancing what you're doing.

What is debt consolidation? The term debt consolidation can be somewhat confusing because the term itself is somewhat deceptive. When a homeowner re-finances his home for the purpose of debt consolidation, he is not actually consolidating the debt in the true sense of the word.

By definition to consolidate means to unite or to combine into one system. However, this is not what actually happens when debts are consolidated. The existing debts are actually repaid by the debt consolidation loan.

The big advantage of a home loan is that the interest rates are often lower than the interest rates of regular loanforms.

Prior to the debt consolidation the homeowner may have been repaying a monthly debt to one or more credit card companies, an auto lender, a student loan lender or any number of other lenders but now the homeowner is repaying one debt to the mortgage lender who provided the debt consolidation loan.

The consolidated loan has to meet the terms and conditions of the applicable loan in terms of interest and payment periods.

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