Should you use home equity to get rid of debt?
By the time people notice, they were already got into credit card debt. It is because an occasional shopping pleasure, eating out and jolly weekends enough to get mounted with credit card debt. In addition, the present economy outcomes like joblessness and high cost of living necessities lead many people into debt.
Incurring more and more debt every month and not paying at least 10 to 20 percent of the debt is the cause of debt multiplying at faster pace. If you keep up with only minimum payments, it is not lead you nowhere instead dragging deep into debt. Yes, it is because the amount you pay monthly will not even cover the interest incurred as the credit card debt carries huge interest rate mostly 24 to 36 percent where you only pay 2 to 5 percent as minimum monthly payments. Imagine how long it will take to clear the debt if you were to pay 2 to 5 percent as minimum payment.
As the interest accruing every month and coupled with principle, it will take almost 40 years to pay off an average $5,000 to $10,000 credit card debt. For this reason, if you want to pay of the debt faster, two things must be taken care off. One is pay more than minimum payments and the other, reduce the interest rate.
Always make sure that making minimum payments and staying current on debt is not you anywhere, instead credit card companies will benefit from this type of consumers attitude. Therefore make sure that you pay as much as you can monthly more than minimum payments.
Next thing to look after is interest rate. As long as the interest rate is high, the debt incurred or multiplied is at faster pace. It is very common that the interest rate charged on the credit card debt is high because it is unsecured debt, meaning it does not posses any kind of collateral. As the debt does not possess collateral, the creditor posses’ risk of lending. In order to cover the risk associated the lender charges high interest rate. Therefore it is very hard to get the interest rate reduced.
The only way to get the interest rate reduced on the credit card debt is to avail the home equity loan to get rid of debt. In this the credit card debt is consolidated with home equity consolidation loan where you can manage to get the interest rate at lower level because you put home as a collateral for the debt. With this the creditor reduces the risk of lending and this benefit is passed on to borrower by reducing the rate of interest.
Usually, many experts advice not to use home equity loan to pay off the credit card debt because in any uncertain conditions, you default on the payments then you will carry the risk of losing the home for sake of unsecured debt. But if you want to lower the rate of interest paid on debt then this is the only way to about.