What Are Your Options If You Have a Bad Credit History?

Bad credit history can significantly affect the functioning of your life as a businessman. A business loan, insurance coverage, employment review, student loan, and home, or car funding, all require scanning of your credit scores to determine the lenders’ financial security. Insurance companies scan through your credit history and use insurance scores to determine what offers to make for each individual. Similarly, some employers check credit to identify their most responsible candidates. Also, when getting loans for students, home, or car, your negative credit can land you in a higher interest-rate scenario. There are no options but to opt for bad credit business loans. The lower the credit score, the higher the interest rates on your loans. The bigger stumbling blocks will be on your road to fulfilling the needs of your family. Negative credit restricts any monetary support from the financial institutions. Hence reducing the number of options available to get a loan. 

With almost everyone jumping on the entrepreneurial bandwagon in recent years, a variety of small businesses are launched in higher numbers across the world. These small businesses entail a certain amount of financing to get off the ground and maintain sustainability. Setting a startup comes with many difficulties, obstacles, and uncertainties.  Obtaining a small business loan with bad credit adds to an entrepreneur’s frustration. Any business needs to maintain their credit history as this can help with several things. Businesses need loans to run successfully and may face several situations where money is needed big time. It is always better to keep a check on your credit history and look for ways to improve it.

Bad credit history is your previous negative financial information concerning borrowing loans, including late payments, bankruptcy records, and collection accounts. It contains red flags that lower your credit scores, thereby ravaging your chances of getting a loan. Credit scores are computer-generated based data on an individual’s past credit reports that lenders interpret to decide whether they approve of a particular person’s loan or not. Individuals who have 720 or above score may get a loan seamlessly from any bank. However, those with less than 720 may bound to higher interest rates, whereas those below 650 may not receive any approval at all. If you wish to inquire about your credit score, you can buy them from any credit bureaus.

So if you’re contemplating to acquire a loan with a bad credit history, your primary concern should be to improve your credit score. You should timely payback your credits to keep your track record clean. Eric Rosenberg writes for Business Insider, “The biggest factor in your credit score is your on-time payment history, so you should start by making sure that is perfect going forward.”

She adds, “The easiest way to ensure you never miss a payment due date is to turn on automatic billing and payments using your bank’s bill pay or your credit card billing website.”

Although low credit score causes high-interest rates, the rates do depend largely on the lenders. It is essential to tally rates with different lenders to get a suitable offer. Be sure of your credit scores, keep tracking them on Credit Karma and know where you stand. Also, if you timely pay your credits and dispute errors as you reach out to credit bureaus such as TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian to remove derogatory remarks or incorrect late payment entries from the credit report.

If nothing mentioned above works out for you, then you must screen the good and the bad features of the various options of loans for borrowers with negative credit history to determine what type of loan you require.

Here are some other liable options:

CREDIT UNIONS:

Credit Unions take risks of approving loans of borrowers with bad credit history since they review the candidate’s entire application and history. Moreover, they charge lower interest rates capping out at 18 percent, unlike banks.

SECURED LOAN:

A secured loan is offering some sort of security to the lenders to obtain a loan from them. It involves giving away your assets as collateral to pay back the loan, but it enables the lender to seize your asset if you fail to return the money you owe.

ONLINE LENDERS:

The online lenders instantly analyze your financial documents online and match your lender offers to provide you funding within 24-48 hours. Websites like Credible and Fundera deliver offers from various lenders for bad credit borrowers.  Their primary concern is income and not the credit, unlike banks.

HOME EQUITY LOANS:

If you have substantial equity, you can borrow funds for 30 years using the home equity loan irrespective of your bad credit history. However, you are required to pay a significant amount of fees and offer your house as collateral to return the money you owe.

CO-SIGNER:

If you are a financially stable individual with excellent credit history, sign your loan, then lenders settle reasonable deals. In case you are unable to pay back your borrowed money, lenders will go after your co-signer.

INCREASED DOWN PAYMENT:

If you increase the size of your down payment, the lender may offer you a deal despite your bad credit history. High down payments diminish your APR, lessening the interest rate on the item you wish to buy.

RESEARCH BAD CREDIT LENDERS:

Several bad credit lenders make reasonable offers. It depends on your extensive research skills as to how well you can pick good-quality fish from the sea. Check online, search among friends and family, or word of mouth. 

BUSINESS LINE OF CREDIT:

with a bad credit score and no collateral, a business line of credit is another type of credit card.  You only pay interest on the capital and not the total balance.  You pay back the money daily, unlike credit cards that have the flexibility to make payments monthly for a year. 

The Final Word

In a nutshell, people nowadays wish to start new ventures.  Very few of them know about acquiring funds and managing them. Funds are the main thing businesses must focus on.  They must keep track of how much cash is coming in and going out. According to a report on Experian, 61 percent of people check their credit scores after three months, whereas 67 percent of people don’t even understand how credit scores are created. Just because you are dealing with bad credit, doesn’t mean it can’t improve. Your credit history says a lot about how you deal with financial situations and how serious you are about them.

Nevertheless, this article aims to guide negative credit applicants who wish to acquire any loan. Although it may take some time and effort but trying out these options can lead you to a loan that will benefit your needs and aspirations. After knowing the importance of credit history, businesses will care for their credit history more than usual. There is still a sea of opportunities for all to grab!