Jean Chatzky Quotes

You also need to understand that when you consolidate credit card debt into mortgage debt - like a home equity loan or a HELOC [ home equity line of credit ] - you're taking an unsecured debt and turning it into a secured debt.

The decline in home equity makes it more difficult for struggling homeowners to refinance and reduces the financial incentive of stressed borrowers to remain in their homes.

Under Bill Clinton's HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Community Reinvestment Act regulators gave banks higher ratings for home loans made in 'credit-deprived' areas. Banks were effectively rewarded for throwing out sound underwriting standards and writing loans to those who were at high risk of defaulting.

A consolidation makes sense only if you can lower your overall interest rate. Many people consolidate by taking out a home equity line loan or home equity line of credit (HELOC), refinancing a mortgage, or taking out a personal loan. They then use this cheaper debt to pay off more expensive debt, most frequently credit card loans, but also auto loans, private student loans, or other debt.

If you have credit card debt and credit card companies continue to close down the cards, what are you going to do? What are you going to do if they raise your interest rates to 32 percent? That's five times higher than what your kid is going to pay in interest on a student loan. Get rid of your credit card debt.

Credit cards are the WORST investment that you can make.

In about one-third of credit card consolidations, within a short period of time, the cards come back out of the wallet, and in no time at all, they're charged back up. Then you're in an even worse position, because you have the credit card debt and the consolidation loan to worry about. You're in a hole that's twice as deep - and twice as steep.

Home purchases that are very highly leveraged or unaffordable subject the borrower and lender to a great deal of risk. Moreover, even in a strong economy, unforeseen life events and risks in local real estate markets make highly leveraged borrowers vulnerable.

If you have a lot of short-term debt, it means that all of that money can be demanded in a very short period of time. Technically, short-term debt means money that's coming due within a year. Typically, it means money that's coming due within 30 to 90 days.

Credit is an 'I love debt' score.

Many a man who pays rent all his life owns his own home; and many a family has successfully saved for a home only to find itself at last with nothing but a house.

While I encourage people to save 100% down for a home, a mortgage is the one debt that I don't frown upon.

So you know, everyone points out Greece's default record, but the history of a lot of sovereign nations is not a good one when it comes to lending them money.

I had a couple come in with a negative amortization mortgage on a house that costs way too much relative to their income. They're consuming real estate, not investing in it.

Credit buying is much like being drunk. The buzz happens immediately and gives you a lift... The hangover comes the day after.

Market discipline can only limit moral hazard to the extent that debt and equity holders believe that, in the event of distress, they will bear costs.

The real danger with debt is what happens if lots of people decide, or are forced, to pay it off at the same time.

If you can't afford the upkeep of your home, it makes no sense to do a reverse mortgage. You will just end up having to sell eventually when you realize you can't afford the home, and whether you have any equity left after the sale depends on the size of the reverse loan that must be settled.

It is very difficult to predict when a bond crisis could happen.

Homeowners who refinanced their mortgages took out cash and reduced their monthly payments at the same time. Much of the cash obtained by refinancing was spent on consumer durables, home improvements and the like.

Because reverse mortgages do not require borrowers to make immediate repayments, the interest charges are added to the debt every day, and the total amount owed grows over time.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

Credit cards are like snakes: Handle 'em long enough, and one will bite you.

No nation can miss interest or principle payments without some negative impact on its credit standing.

The farmer may often have suffered from excessive interest and grasping creditors; but it was no less frequently the avarice of the lender that got him into trouble than the fact that he was too sanguine and too prone to believe that he could safely go into debt, on the assumption that crops and prices in the future would equal those in the present.