San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

First, is your house really worth 530k? Don't look at what anything sold for in the past few months or what zillow says.

If you had to sell your house TODAY what price would you have to list it at to generate that sale?

MONT,
I'm in the mortgage biz and often get questions like yours.

It depends on your overall situation and the rate/loan that you have now. Depends what you can qualify for.
It's really not a situation to struggle over.

The rental market is what it is, regardless of what you owe or what the house is worth.

If you get a fully amortized loan, you will be paying principal.
If you compare an interest only loan, your cash flow will be better.

If you want an analysis of what you can actually qualify for from someone that can help you, just let me know.

You are going to get plenty of opinions here from people who don't really understand your overall situation, but think that they do.

The longer you wait, the lower the value of the house will probably be, and from what you are asking, you will still have your other debt that may be at a higher rate and is not tax deductible.
If you wait until it's not your primary residence to refi, your rate will be higher.

If you are trying to pick the exact bottom of rates, that isn't realistic.

If the 30K interest is much higher than you should refinance. But before you get a new loan, you might want to consider borrow against your 401K if you have one to pay off the 30K. The will be repaying yourself on the 401K interest.

I am doing a REFI right now. I am doing it now since I see that the prices(values) are coming down, and rates are low at this time. I was thinking of waiting till rates fell a bit more, but that may not happen.

Don't put your debt into your mortgage. The CC companies have great deals out there with super low rates when you do a transfer. The key is to not be even a day late on those accounts. They pray you are late so they can jack up the rate on you. Also, don't use the credit card after the transfer. It is another trick they use.

What is/are the interest rate(s) on the debt you have?

Mont9210 - You need to provide us with the primary variables in order to get any solid advice:

What are the rate & terms of your existing mortgage & 30k debt? What is your credit score?

Here is a basic decision list:

IF
your 30k of debt's rate is >= to your existing mortgage rate
AND
your existing mortgage rate is >= to current mortgage rates
AND
the associated refi & third party fees do not increase the new mortgages "basic" APR above your existing mortgage
AND
the true APR over 10-15 years (your loan timeframe) on the new mortgage is less then your existing.

THEN refinancing the primary mortgage makes sense, otherwise an equity loan or no action would be best (dependent on variables above).

More points to consider;
Your house value can fall to ~430k (yuk), as this is the 80% LTV mark when including your debt (assuming no systemic credit contraction).

Your cash flow if renting should really take into account your 30k worth of debt (which I assume is revolving), as the payments on your existing mortgage and CC debt are almost certainly higher then a consolidated loan.

A poster above mentioned an IO loan. I would stay away from interest only loans, unless you really understand the trade-off between increased cash-flow and the spread you will need to earn on the principal saved to justify it.

The credit card transfer trick is a viable option if you can get a low lifetime rate (and abide by ALL there rules) or if you are willing to risk numerous periodic transfers, with the possibility of teaser rates being higher in the future, adverse changes in your credit score, industrywide credit contraction, etc.

Best of luck.