A Beginner's Guide to Loans

Personal loans are usually offered by the larger banks. You can use them to borrow between £1,000 to £25,000. They tend to have relatively short terms ranging from 12 months to 7 years. They are often advertised with low headline rates or APR’s which can make them look very attractive or cheap. However, the reality is that they are reserved for people who lenders consider to be low risk or have a near perfect credit rating. Therefore you are unlikely to get one unless you have an excellent credit record. Eligibility checking service shows you the likelihood of you being accepted before you apply without affecting your credit rating so you can apply with confidence

Homeowner loans allow mortgage holders to take out a second charge loan on their property in addition to a mortgage. These loans are secured against your property, meaning that you could lose your home if you don’t keep up repayments. However if used properly they can allow borrowers to access relatively large sums of up to £100,000. Because the loan is secured against your property, you may be accepted for a secured loan even if you’ve been declined for a personal loan or if your credit rating is not perfect. It might be possible to use a homeowner loanto create lower monthly payments on existing debts to make them more affordable. Homeowner loans run for longer terms of up to 25 years meaning you can spread the cost of your debts which should lower your monthly repayments. However be careful, although the monthly payment may be lower, over the lifetime of the debt the total amount you pay back is likely to be higher.

There has been a sea change in the loans world in the last few years. Lenders have a completely different attitude to who they will lend to and this has meant that hundreds of thousands of people have been ‘re-priced’ meaning they are now considered to fall into the bad credit category. If this is where you find yourself it’s very likely you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s essential to find a product that is affordable and can help you rebuild your score so that in the long term the cost of your borrowing starts to go down. Our personalised credit comparison tool allows you to compare all kinds of loans see if you are likely to be accepted for them first time. What’s more, it’s 100% free so you don’t need to pay someone for the benefit of comparing loans!

It’s a little-known fact that it can often be much cheaper to borrow on a credit card than take out a loan. In particular, if you’re looking to consolidate credit card debts or you want to borrow less than £2000, a credit card can often beat a loan. Find out if you can borrow for less on a credit card by reading our credit card guide. A credit card could be cheaper than a loan if you are trying to consolidate existing credit card debts or you want to borrow less than £2000. TotallyMoney.com also has an credit card checking tool. A revolutionary piece of technology that puts you back in control of your data, it can help to easily find the best card for you. It does a “soft search” of your credit data and matches that against lenders lending criteria, showing you whether you are likely to be accepted. Rather than having a lender cherry pick their favourite customers and leave the others with a decline on their credit file, we wanted to build something that leaves NO MARK on your credit file AND lets you know if you’ll be accepted.