home equity loan and credit score questions. need an expert!

No. Especially if you are using the loan to reduce your other debt.

Joe(That is what you are doing, right?)Nation

Amis,

If you aren't struggling to pay your monthly bills, I would never take out an Equity loan to get rid of unsecured debt ( credit cards, etc). While it can look good on paper if it saves you a few hundred bucks a month....it can come back and bite you for a couple of reasons. Let's look at those.

1. If you take on a second mortgage and something happens to cause you to struggle to make that payment, since it's a lein on your property...you could lose your home. While if you had left the unsecured debt, STAY unsecured, your home would still be safe as long as you kept the first mortgage up.

2. In todays declining real estate market ... yes it could make it hard for you to sell your home with that 2nd mortgage. It's a buyers market and you may not get enough money on the sale of the home to pay off both mortgages. Lots of people upside down in value right now.

My advice to you is make sure you have a good reason for tapping into your EQ. Such as major improvements to increase your value. Even then.....do your homework. Get someone to appraise your home and give you todays value PLUS the value AFTER improvements are finished. I wouldn't want to go over 85% MAX of my homes value on a combined 1st and 2nd. Would be different if home prices were on the rise.

Play it safe. Protect your home. We don't know where the bottom is on prices yet.