A Beginner's Guide to Bad Credit Secured Loans

A Beginner's Guide to Bad Credit Secured Loans

By By John Mussi

Here is a useful beginner's guide to bad credit secured loans. If your credit is less than perfect but you find yourself needing money now, you might want to look into bad credit secured loans. If you're not sure what these are, bad credit secured loans are loans designed for people who are considered credit risks by many institutions. They're called “secured” loans because they require some sort of security deposit (also known as “collateral”), which helps to protect the lender against some of the risk of lending. These loans allow you to get the money that you need without having to pay outrageous fees, and as long as you pay the bad credit secured loan back on time then there's no real risk to your collateral.

Common types of collateral

While collateral can be pretty much anything with a value equal to or greater than the amount of the bad credit loan, the most common types of collateral are automobiles and real estate. With most bad credit secured loans, you don't even have to give up your collateral… you get to keep driving your car and can still live in your house, but the bank or other lender gains a legal claim to the title or the deed so that if you don't repay the bad credit loan (also known as “defaulting”) then they can repossess the collateral and sell it to get their money back. Of course, with some types of collateral the lender might prefer to hold onto it until the loan is repaid; common collateral of this type is jewelry, rare coins, or other small-but-valuable items. This practice helps to insure that the property you're using as collateral isn't lost or stolen before the time they would have to repossess.

Getting bad credit secured loans

Some lenders don't offer bad credit secured loans… even with the collateral, they consider them to be too much risk. Other lenders deal almost exclusively in bad credit secured loans, using the mindset that people with bad credit have to go somewhere and that their establishment might as well be that place. Shop around before deciding on a single place, seeing what interest rates and repayment terms various lenders offer. You might even check out some of the many lenders online.

Once you've decided on a lender, go and apply for your loan. The maximum amount that you'll likely get will still be a lot less than the value of your collateral… after all, the lenders who deal in bad credit secured loans want to make sure that they'll recover their money even if your collateral doesn't sell for much. Once you've obtained your loan, work to pay it back as quickly as possible; not only will this remove any danger of you losing your collateral, but it will also create a good impression with this lender should you need to borrow money from them again someday.