Personal Loan

[Seth]

I'm looking at picking up an older 4x4 ext truck that will run me no more than $5000. Auto loans only go down to a minimum of $7500 that I can tell so I guess I need to look into a personal loan.

I'm curious as to what kind of rates and how long I could finance a $5000 personal loan. Calling the bank and asking would probably be easiest, but I figured I'd just throw this on here and see if you guys have any knowledge on this that you can fill me in on.

I have a boat that's worth about $4000 I'd guess that I could use as collateral if that makes any differences in the loan or not.

[zander]

the rates are largely dependent on your credit score and debt to income ratio. Usually on these types of loans you can have them 24-48 months but usually on the shorter side of it. Sometimes collateral is needed and sometimes it is not, once again depends on your credit strength. remember that we are in a credit crunch right now and likely for the next two years so the rates maybe a little higher than what you may expect since prime rate is at 5.00% Another option would be to use a life of the loan convenience check from one of your credit cards. Make it out to yourself, put it in your checking account. Wait for the funds to become available and do it that way. If you do use those, I would strongly encourage you to set that account up on automatic payment so that there would be no chance of losing hte promo rate. Often with those checks you can get rates from 2.99 F APR to 5.99 F APR.

edit- another advantage of doing this is that it won't cause another inquiry to appear on your credit bureau report

[Seth]

Dang...I am not much on loans but that sounded .....difficult..lol.

Anyhow, my credit rating should be doing well. I've had a vehicle loan for almost 3.5 years now and made every payment on time and actually am several months ahead of my pay schedule because I pay extra each month. My boat is paid of now too and I paid that loan off early earlier this year. My credit cards get paid in full each month and I have had two of them for about three years also.

The only loan I have outstanding right now is the 3765 that I owe on my current vehicle, a 2005 Ford Ranger.

I just checked my debt to income ratio and I am sitting at 20% right now, which according to the site is very good.