Do you need cash? Here's a mortgage for you. If you are not in a good position to take an equity line of credit on your home, because you have not built enough equity or a poor credit situation is making bankers steer clear of you, altogether, there is another option -- the cashout refinance. This loan does what the equity line does in most cases, but it is not an interest-only loan, and it has conventional mortgage terms. The advantage for people without enough equity and less than perfect credit is you can get at what little equity you do have by refinancing to a new conventional mortgage, taking cash out at the close of the loan.

Here's how it works.

Let's assume you have a home valued at $110,000. You owe $86,000, and you would like to get $8,000 in cash to pay off two small credit cards with high interest and to do some minor rehab work on you home. With your B credit rating, banks won't give you 100 percent of your equity or even 95 percent, so an equity line won't work.

However, you will qualify for a 90 percent cashout refinance loan. In order to keep your costs down, you combine this strategy with another one, an adjustable rate mortgage, and this helps you maintain a low monthly payment.

You need about $4,000 to close the loan (remember it's a conventional mortgage with all the closing costs -- equity loans can be closed with no costs at all). The closing costs, though, will be financed into your new loan, so you don't have to come out of pocket with any money.

So, you get a new mortgage for $99,000, which pays off your old fixed rate mortgage loan, covers the closing costs and, best of all, leaves you with $9,000 in cash -- $1,000 more than you actually need.

The ARM rate is probably one percent less than your old fixed rate, so your payment will stay close to what it was. Plus, you eliminate monthly credit debt, so you have created even more cash! This is just an overview of a very powerful loan.