About Interest Rates
4 MAJOR FACTS THAT INFLUENCE YOUR CAR LOAN INTEREST RATE
If you’re looking at buying a new car and getting a car loan, it pays to be prepared. We look at some of the factors that can influence what sort of interest rate you can get on a car loan.
The first thing a lender will want to see when determining your car loan interest rate is evidence of your financial status such as your current income, other loans or credit.
What is a car loan interest rate?
When applying for a car loan (or any type of loan for that matter), it’s important to look at interest rates. An interest rate is essentially a fee you’re charged for borrowing money from a lender. It is expressed as a percentage of the total loan amount per annum (or year).
There are a number factors that can influence the potential car loan interest rate you can get – such as your personal finances, credit history, deposits and not to mention the amount of shopping around that you do. Let’s have a closer look at some of these.
Financial Status
The first thing a lender will want to see when determining your car loan interest rate is evidence of your financial status. Factors like your current income, your credit score, other loans or credit you might be paying off and your spending habits also have a big influence on your potential interest rate. A way to help reduce this process is to sit down and calculate how much you can realistically afford each month.
Vehicle age
Vehicle age is another thing that lenders will take into consideration, with some lenders refusing to loan if the car is older than five years, and some older than 9 years, however there are lenders that will look at cars that are up to 25 years old, but one important thing to keep in mind is that the older the car the higher the rate will be due to the increased risk on older cars. This is because cars are one of the common purchases that lose value (depreciate) over time. If you default on a payment and the lender has to seize your car and sell it, they may not get the full amount they’re owed back from the sale, which creates a high risk, so the older the car the higher the risk and the higher the interest rate.
Credit history
Your credit score indicates to a lender how much of a ‘risk’ you are as a borrower. Many people think that by applying to multiple lenders at the same time, they can get the best interest rate possible. However, each time you apply for credit, your score can be negatively impacted, each time you apply for credit your credit score reduces – so making multiple applications could backfire and end up impacting your credit score which will impact your interest rate and also reduce your chances of getting a loan at all if your credit score is too low. Make sure you’re aware of your credit rating before applying for a loan because if your application is rejected by the lender, this could also impact your credit history.
The other items looked at from your credit report is, do you have defaults, judgments, basically any bad credit you have had will also place you in the high risk category and will have a major impact on 2 things, one is, can you get credit at all, the other is, if you can get credit then due to the high risk you fall into because of the bad credit history you have the rate would be high as well, the interest rate is then calculated on how high of a credit risk you are, the higher the risk category you fall into the higher the interest rate would be, however keep in mind that you can still get reasonable interest rates if you have had bad credit and you fall into a low credit risk category.
Applying for a car loan through a licenced broker
When applying for a car loan with a licenced broker, our credit check will never appear on your personal credit report, therefor it doesn’t impact your credit score and will never reduce your chances of getting a car loan, applying though a licenced finance broker is always a better choice when you are wanting to know if you can get a car loan, and what car loan packages/options are available to you based on your overall profile. A licenced financed broker has access to many lenders and can place you with the correct lender the first time based on your personal circumstances and credit profile.
At Auto Link Finance we provide a free credit assessment that provides this service for you, during this process we are able to tell you if you can get a car loan, what options are available to you, what the interest rate would be, what loan amount you can get, what the actual repayments would be, and finally what the fees associated to your car loan are as well, this is a very comprehensive accurate assessment conducted by our Senior finance consultants with over 30 years’ experience in bad credit car finance & good credit car finance,
Want to know what we can do for you, apply now for our free credit assessment, its free, has fast results, its very accurate and provides you with everything you need to know in order to make an informed decision before proceeding to get your car loan.
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