Every person and situation is different, but generally your credit score goes up instead of down. When you apply, there’s a small credit pull, which might lower your score a few points temporarily. But as you pay off higher-interest debt and lower your overall balances, your score often goes up in the long run.

No. The HELOC and HELOAN options both involve you keeping your current mortgage. Even if you go with a cash-out refinance, you can often set the length to match your current loan life (so if you have 18 years left, get an 18-year loan).

Yes! Most of the time you are not limited on what you have to spend the money on. Sometimes we have to pay off certain debts to make your numbers work, but other than that, the money is yours to spend as you want. If you have $30,000 in credit card debt and get an $80,000 loan, you can pay off those cards and have $50,000 to use on whatever else you want--vacation, remodel, investing, etc.

Once we start the paperwork, it usually takes about 30 days. Various factors come into play such as waiting on the appraiser, the survey, etc. Texas law requires a minimum 12-day waiting period.

Every refinance has standard closing costs — things like title, appraisal, and lender fees. But the good news is, you can often roll those costs into your new loan or offset them with lender credits so there’s little or no out-of-pocket expense. Your goal is to pay off debt, so we try to keep this loan from making creating more. Average closing costs are around 2-3% of the loan amount, but in Texas they cannot be more than 2% if you are getting equity from your homestead.