Reducing my car payment for a better home loan

[Bijan Gavahi]

So I want to get my first property and do a house hack. I am in Salt Lake city and the highest I can get for a duplex is $300,000 which is great but some of the nicer duplexes are $350,000 or higher. A lender i spoke with said that if I didn't have my car payment, he would be able to offer me a higher loan.

I only have $7000 left on my car loan with zero percent interest so I probably shouldn't refinance. I pay $279 a month and will be done in about 2 years. I did take a second job and working on reducing that to half the time or less.

I had an idea though. I have good credit and thought I could find a card with low interest rates or one with 0% interest for the first year. If i put my remaining loan on that card, I would have lower mandatory monthly payments which would mean I could get a better house loan. I still would pay it off within a year but lenders look at the mandatory payments usually.

Is this a good idea or what are the problems I am not seeing?