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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JoanP who wrote (2452)	4/24/2002 10:46:30 AM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Guess it depends on how one wants to manage one's debt, and what interest rates are available at the time. I'd personally be in line to get a home equity loan if I needed a big chunk of cash to pay off a one-time debt, such as a new car, or a wedding for a child, or a major home remodeling project. On the other hand, if one plans to stay chronically in debt to the credit card companies, I suppose it's easier to pay the minimum monthly payments (and don't total up the final price actually being paid in the end for whatever was bought, because it will be huge.) Just seems to me (and many others) that when money is on sale (and home loans have been on sale-for-cheap for several years now), it pays to get one and take the tax deduction rather than pay credit card interest. If one has equity and needs to use it for a worthwhile purpose, the equity should be used, in my humble opinion. For some people, paying exorbitant credit card interest every month is no less a threat to keeping one's home than paying off a tax-deductible second mortgage. When cards payments are missed, penalties mount and the card companies raise the interest rate, driving the debt even deeper---on top of that, the borrower runs into higher rates and fees on other things once the bad mark shows up on the credit report. What a life! Perhaps the most disturbing thing is the casual way in which some people discuss the "worst thing that can happen" as being a ruined credit rating.