In order to decide if a debt consolidation is your best action, you should figure what you are paying now and how that will translate in the length of time it will take you to pay off those credit cards. You may find that rolling those debts into your mortgage will save you thousands of dollars in interest payments.

A mortgage agent can help you decide if refinancing credit card debt into a mortgage is your best option. Using financial calculators available, they can compare how long and how much it will cost you to pay off credit card debt using your current monthly payments vs refinancing the debt into a new mortgage. Very often the monthly and lifetime savings is large.

One major difference between unsecured (e.g. credit card) debts and secured (e.g. mortgage) debt is should a financial disaster arise, such as health issues, or lose a job, and a homeowner defaults on unsecured debts, he can file bankruptcy protection and keep the home, whereas if he defaults on mortgage payments, he would be forced into foreclosure.

If you are planning on selling your ome inthe near future, you may want to rethink consolidating. You need to make sure that you have enough equity to pay for realtor's commision and down payment or closing costs on the new home.

If you have gotten buried in a hole with credit card debt it could be a necessity to refinance your home and pay off your credit card debt. It has been known to save thousands of dollars. On the other side of the spectrum, if you only have 5 months left on a credit card bill it is note wise decision to bury that into a mortgage.

You can consolidate your credit card debt through use of your first mortgage or by obtaining a second mortgage or a home equity line of credit, also known as a HELOC. A HELOC works with the same basic principals of a credit card. It is a revolving account that as you pay the equity line down, you have that money available to you to use again. With a second mortgage you simply have a set term (5 years, 10 years, 15 years, etc...) that you will pay on the loan for and when it is paid off you are relinquished of your obligation to this debt and the account closes. All 3 (1st mortgagae, 2nd mortgage or HELOC) are excellent choices for debt consolidation but you and your mortgager broker will need to figure out which one makes the most sense for your particular situation.

Debt consolidation can save a homeowner hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dollars per month by lowering their total monthly obligations. When you consolidate credit cards into your mortgage you also are able to lower your interest rates on those credit cards which essentially saves you a lot of money but you are able to write off the interest on your tax returns from your mortgage and you can not do this with your credit cards.

If you want to use a refinance loan for Debt Consolidation, you're going to have to borrow more than the actual amount remaining on the loan that you're refinancing. This additional amount will be used to pay off those debts that are being consolidated and will affect the monthly payment of your refinanced loan. By doing this, however, you can make your finances and outstanding debts much more manageable and will likely become debt-free much faster.  Often this move creates cashflow. Since your credit card debt is not a tax deductable and a mortgage payment is, often its a wise move to do.

When deciding to refinance for debt consolidation you might want to consider how long you will have to pay your credit cards if you are only making the monthly minimums. This can take you much longer in most cases than paying on a traditional 30 year fixed mortgage.