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Secured Loans and Unsecured Loans- What's the Difference?
Whether you’re new to the world of financing or you’ve done this a number of times before there’s always more to know about your options and what is out there so you can decide what will work best for you and your circumstances. One of the first basic decisions you have to make is whether you want to apply for secured loans or unsecured loans, so, what’s the difference? This article goes over where these options differ so that you can decide what is important for you and your financial situation.
Unsecured loans are based on your financial background, focusing on your income, and your credit history. This is all they have to look at and base their decision to lend to you on. When a lender looks at your credit history they are trying to decide how much of a risk you representthe risk being that you won’t make your monthly payments on time. When you have a lot of late and missed payments in your financial history this tells them that you are likely to not pay on time. When you are considered a high risk applicant they are less likely to approve your application at all, and when they do, the worse your credit is worse the higher the interest rate they offer you will be. Another key difference when compared to secured financing is that they are much faster to get approval for because there is no evaluation process. All they have to look at is your history and your income, which won’t take them long to judge.
Secured loans are also based on your financial background, like your income and your credit history, but use collateral in addition. The collateral takes the pressure off of your financial history, but that history does still matter. The collateral will be taken if you fail to make your payments. Because there is a way for the lender to recover their money they will be much more likely to approve your application with an iffy credit history, and are going to offer you a better interest rate than they would otherwise. It does take a bit more time however because whatever you are using for collateral has to be appraised to determine it’s worth.
So what option works best for you? This depends on what your needs are exactly. Everyone wants the best interest rate they can get! But is approval time important, and what is your financial history like? These are questions you should ask yourself before determining what is the right path for you when you’re looking at secured loans and unsecured loans.
Interest Only Loan Rate
Interest only (IO) loans are loans that provide the option to pay just the interest on a loan for an initial period of repayment, say 5 years or 10 years. It also gives the choice of paying the interest plus as much principal as you want. The main advantage of this loan is the low interest you pay each month even though the interest rate is the same as that on conventional loans. IO loans also help to control the monthly payment and cash flow each month. After the initial period, the repayments are raised to fully amortized levels. These loans allow for a large principle prepayment if desired.
Interest only loans can be fixed-rate mortgages (FRM) or adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM). Though it is generally felt that interest only loans have lower interest rates, this is not true. In fact, they may have higher rates, because the risk is greater in IO loans. While going for an interest only loan with adjustable rates, it is very important to consider what the future interest rates are likely to be. This is because repayment in the future will consist of both interest as well as the principle.
For interest only loans based on the adjustable mortgage rates, the interest rate is calculated and changed based on the index rate. The Index rate depends on the average of Interbank offered rates for one year US dollar denominated deposits in the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate). This Index is published in the Wall Street Journal. The interest rate is adjusted according to the index plus the margin (rounded to the nearest 1/8 percentage point). The interest rate cannot change by more than 5.00 percentage points than the initial interest rate over the whole term of the loan. Similarly, it cannot decrease less than the margin on the loan. Interest only loan products can be 30, 20, 15 or 10 year fixed mortgage with varying adjustable rates.
With increasing real estate prices, interest-only loans are becoming a preferred option for many. There are also many lending companies that are giving attractive options on interest-only loans. Information about interest-only loans is available on the Internet. They also contain easy-to-use interest only calculators that tell you the kind of repayments you will have to make. The current interest rates on interest only loans are also available on the Internet.