So you want to get $20,000 Loan with poor Credit, but you have a house and tried equity loan but your credit is low. You need to pay off all of my credit because you are sick of paying so much interest on the cards. Go back to college and get a student loan that could be a good idea, if you can't get an equity loan. Would you benefit from another degree? Student loan rates are great, used to be amazing. The other thing about being a student is that you can get a tax credit of up to $2000 per year. Still, I would think that if you met with several mortgage loan officers one of them could get you a loan. My advice, other than to please stop living above your means, is to call each of the credit card companies and try to make arrangements to pay the bill(s) off. Most will be willing to work with you because they want to get their money back. Explain that you are having cash flow problems and that you acknowledge and want to pay them back, but you would like them to work with you to set up a payback plan. This will stave off negative comments on your credit report. But act now, sometimes we put things off because we don't want to deal with it and want to wish it away. The sooner you take care of this, the better. Don't go the sub-prime way, or if you do, do it as a LAST resort. You will get in more trouble in the long run and if you put your house up for collateral, you may lose it. Never, ever put a roof that is over your head in jeopardy! You may also want to contact your local Consumer Credit Counseling Service, the original, not the pretenders that you see on TV. They will help you to get your financial house in order and will act as mediator for you and the credit card companies. They may be able to get them to suspend interest (meaning that they could get them to reduce your interest rate to 0%) while you pay your principal off. Good luck and let this be a valuable lesson to you!