Credit inquiries within the same industry within a 30 day period only count as one inquiry. Many lenders will scare you from shopping with a different lender by telling you otherwise.

debt consolidation refinancing is the practice of moving short-term debt, into a home refinance loan. At closing any debts that have been chosen and listed will be paid from funds, above what is necessary to pay off the original mortgage balance.

8 General guidelines for keeping clean credit minimize credit inquiries; pay bills early; 3. Pay off revolving cards monthly; 4. Never close a credit account; 5. Don’t switch credit cards to get the best rate; 6. Keep the oldest credit account on your credit report; 7. No more than two major bank cards; 8. No more than 50% of your revolving credit limit

Sometimes a debt consolidation refinance may cause your total mortgage payment to increase. This is because you will be borrowing more money, to pay off the debt. Don’t worry though, because if you are paying $400 in credit card debt every month and your mortgage payments increase by $200. You will still be saving $200 every month!

If you are currently making the minimum credit card payments, then it may take you several years to pay them off. This is considering that you continue to make those same minimum payments throughout the life of the debt. If you were to do a debt consolidation, you could have that debt paid off within a matter of weeks.

Correct blatant mistakes . Your credit score is only as good as what shows up in your credit report. Review your reports from all three credit bureaus for accuracy once a year as well as several months before applying for a loan. Changing a mistake on your report – such as a payment that is wrongly labeled as late — can take 30 days to three months, sometimes longer.2) pay your bills on time. This is always a good practice, and it’s especially critical that you make prompt payments close to the time you need a loan. That is because a late or missed payment in the last few months is likely to lower your score much more than an isolated late payment five years ago.3) reduce your credit card balances. A heavily weighted factor in your fico score is how much money you owe on your credit cards relative to your total credit limit. 4) Pay off debt rather than moving it around. Since the ratio of your credit card balance to your credit limit is key, closing out an account and transferring the balance simply means you increase that ratio, which is likely to lower your score. In other words, say you owe a total of $2,000 on four credit cards, each of which has a $2,000 limit. Your total credit limit is $8,000, of which your total balance ($2,000) accounts for 25 percent. If you transfer all your balances to two cards and cancel the other two, your total credit limit is reduced to $4,000, and your $2,000 balance now accounts for 50 percent of that limit.5) don’t close unused credit card accounts near loan time. If you have several credit card accounts but are only using a few of them, you’ll only raise your balance-to-limit ratio if you close the unused ones. You also shouldn’t open new accounts when applying for a loan if possible. If you have a short credit history or very few accounts, opening a new credit line may lower your score since you don’t have a proven track record, a new account will lower the average age of your accounts, another factor in your fico score.

When analyzing the benefits of a debt consolidation refinance you should factor in the amount of time and money it will take you to pay off those credit accounts with your current payment schedule.

Each credit bureau will have slightly (or not so slightly) different information on file about you. Since all three credit scores will be taken into account when you apply for a mortgage, it is important that you clean up your report with all three bureaus.

When considering a debt consolidation refinance you should look at your short and long term financial goals. Paying high interest bearing credit accounts with your mortgage will often times save you thousands over time.

Getting your free credit reports from the three credit bureaus every year is very important. However, credit reports can be difficult to read and interpret. I can go over your credit report with you and tell you what it means.