Posts Tagged car

Do Your Finance Homework Before Signing that Auto Financing Contract

Autofinace can be very confusing if handled without proper guidance. You may stand the risk of paying unnecessarily high amounts of installments or getting an unfavorable warranty deal.

If autofinance is your chosen way, its advisable to seek proper guidance from consultants and other experienced persons. As a basic rule, always steer clear of monthly payment deals as far as you can. If this is the only choice however, pay close attention to the figures involved because car dealers sometimes load these deals and conveniently cover up the true cost of the car.

Its all like an auction. You have to know your terms and upper limit. Simple as that . Do not get clouded with emotion in dealing with products. Do not fall in love with certain auto products on the lot or dealership. There are plenty of other banks , credit companies to obtain a loan from and plenty of fish in the sea and other vehicles to buy – one day soon.

In this day of the internet , much information that was held in the automotive trade as “private ” and “confidential ” can now be readily obtained. Most can be obtained for free with good research skills and effort. Other data and information can be obtained for a relatively small fee – be it an full auto report or information on the fairness and reliability of the auto finance company or bank. If the dealership can have access to your credit report for a fee , why shouldn’t be able to find out online the full history and maintenance reports on the vehicle that you are ready to shell out good money and cash for ?

Lastly, if your dealer wants to create the impression that he is your best friend, just be careful because thats marketing at its best. What he is actually after is your money and his commission. Focus on the value you get with what you are willing to part with for your autofinanced vehicle.

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Your Good Credit Report is Your Life Line

Great credit is key to getting good loans. In this market where lending is tight and money isn’t freely flowing, the only way to get someone to lend you money is with good credit. Here are a few ways to achieve this.

Credit monitoring services like ones from myFICO is very good because it automatically keeps track of your credit report and alerts you whenever there are any changes. You can of course choose to do it yourself but that’s 1000x harder.

Every year, you can get one credit report from each agency (there are three total). If you spread it out and get one from each company every couple of months, you can theoretically keep track of your scores and stay on top of it without much time in between.

You need to make sure you don’t use up all your credit all the time. This is because part of your credit score is dependent on your utilization rate, a measure of how much credit you have available versus how much you use.

Every time you apply for credit, they will ding your credit report. If there are too many within a short period of time, the score will be affected because no one with a good financial picture will keep apply for credit. If it’s not absolutely necessary, space out your applications so it doesn’t look suspicious!

Don’t let any credit card be inactive because credit card companies are starting to cancel them now. If your card is canceled, the utilization rate will automatically go down because your available credit will go down. Therefore, you should use your cards every once in a while even if you don’t need it.

Having more than one credit card will actually help your credit. Lenders will sometimes look at your credit report and deny you because you don’t have enough different forms of borrowing. They see a lack of information as a negative so even though you may have a ton of cash somewhere to pay off any loan, the absence of proof is a big drawback.

Having multiple types of debt (car, mortgage, credit card, student loans) among others is good because it shows that you are able to handle bills that come due every month. It also works the same as having multiple credit cards.

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