consolidate credit card debt (I am buying a new house in 120 days)? Consider this:1. I have $30k in credit card debt.2. I have a 1st mortgage for $200k (4%) and a Home Equity line of $170k (at prime rate) with no additional credit available.3. I am buying another house at the end of April.Would I be better off refinancing my Home Equity and Credit Cards into a new Home Equity loan, or just stick with it as is?I have heard that I may be able to get better rates on my loan for my new house if I refinance. Could this be true?Thoughts? Opinions? Alternatives?

Buying another home with a HELOC of $170K is a bit risky. If you are doing this for investment purposes, be sure you can cover your new mortgage / taxes / monthly maintenance. That said, consolidating your credit card debt is a good idea ONLY if you are willing to cut up all of your credit cards and never use them again. Learn to pay cash before you leverage yourself with debt through owning 2 homes, a HELOC, and credit cards.

You don't mention how much equity you have left in the home, but lets assume you have some equity. You would not want to "max out" your equity. Save at least 5-10% since you are going to be buying another home soon. Now if you have equity left to refinance your equity loan & pay down some credit cards, by all means do so. To best improve your credit score, pay off what you can, but at least reduce each credit card so that you have some available credit if any are at or near their limits. These are important factors in credit scoring and will get you a better rate on your new home. Its best not to close the cards that you pay off. Having that available credit will help your score. Close the cards after you secure your new home loan. Good luck!

You might be wondering whether the time is right for you to refinance your mortgage. You might even be wondering if you should refinance your mortgage at all. Since refinancing is not a decision to be made lightly, there are several facts you will want to consider before going through with it. There are various ways for you to figure out if now is the best time to refinance your mortgage.
Times when it's good to refinance:

When you want to consolidate and pay off other debts, refinancing gives you a great chance to pay off your loans at a lower rate when you consolidate them. The interest you pay on your mortgage will also be tax-deductible and this will lead to cheaper payments in the long run.

If lower interest rates are available, and you're looking to save some extra money, why pay a higher interest rate? If your mortgage is not on a fixed-rate interest program, it is definitely to your advantage to shop around and try to find better rates, even after your home loan is secured. The duration of your mortgage can also be adjusted through refinancing as well. If you want to shorten the length of your mortgage from 30 years to 15, refinancing can make that happen.

If you're looking to get some extra cash, refinancing can go to work for you. If you choose to do cash-out refinancing, you will get the cash you need right away, and it can be used towards anything.

As you can see from this list, refinancing can have many benefits. There are many options available through refinancing that can give you more money for now, and more savings for the future. However, there are other times and situations where refinancing would not be the best option.

Times when you should not refinance:

If you only want to eliminate mortgage insurance, there are easier ways to do it than refinancing. You would want to contact your home loan provider for a list of other ways since each provider is different. It almost always involves having an appraisal, but this will be immensely cheaper than refinancing.
If the refinancing rates are not noticeably lower than your current rates, then what's the point in going through the massive effort and application process? You want to make sure that you will save a large enough amount of money to make the refinancing worth the effort. If you're simply doing it just to grab fast cash and aren't paying much attention to the actual rates, you would probably be better of looking for a loan elsewhere.

If you can avoid refinancing mistakes such as these last two, you should definitely be able to make the most out of refinancing and hopefully be able to put the extra money to good use. Refinancing can be a great asset if it is planned carefully and done at the right time.