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Secured Loans Are Based On Equity In Your Home

In financial jargon, the word Equity means the difference between the market value of your home and the debts raised against it. In other words, it is the unencumbered value of your home that is known as equity. The concept of equity is important for a homeowner since a loan can be raised against the equity in your home. Many lenders offer a loan to value ratio of eighty per cent only. It means that if your home has a value of £150,000, you can take a loan up to £120,000.

The credit rating that you have at the time of taking loan is very important. A good credit rating implies that your past conduct in the financial transactions was trustworthy and, therefore, lenders are likely to offer you a low rate of interest. By releasing the equity in your home, you can borrow up to £250,000. People usually take loan against equity only when they have large monetary requirements.

How borrowers are advantageously placed when taking secured loans?

In the past few years, the value of an average home in the UK has increased manifold. This reflects in the prevailing home prices; an average home costing more than £200,000 in the UK. The higher the price, the higher will be the equity in your home. Thus, the homeowners who want to borrow money are obviously better situated than those who are living on rent. In normal course, lenders give 80 per cent of equity in your home as a loan but this is not a fixed criterion and you may get more or less depending upon individual financial circumstances.

Bad credit loans and credit reference agencies

Secured loans are also available to those people who are having a bad credit rating. The credit rating is a numerical figure that is attributed to every borrower on the basis of his past conduct in the loan market. There are several credit reference agencies in the UK that gather information from various sources like the electoral roll, county court judgments and financial institutions. On the basis of the information collected, these agencies give a credit rating to every borrower. Lenders check credit rating to their satisfaction before sanctioning any loan to the borrowers.

Bad credit loans are available in two ways – by providing a security or without it. However, lenders prefer to give bad credit loans only to those borrowers who can provide a security. This is usually done to cover the risk involved in giving loans to people who have dubious credit record.

Low Interest Rate Does Not Always Mean Cheap Loans

Summary: Cheap loans are a reality and not a myth. However, a low interest rate in itself does not mean that the loan is cheap because there may be many other costs involved apart from the interest rate.

The general perception is that a loan that involves low rate of interest is beneficial. This, however, does not hold true in every case. Sometimes, manipulative lenders offer you very low interest rate but they raise the total cost of borrowing by charging loan arrangement fee and early repayment penalty. In this way, a consumer who is not aware of these things may think that he has got a good loan deal from the lender whereas the reality is very far away.

There is a concept of annual percentage rate or APR that has been specially introduced to counter the manipulative tactics adopted by some lenders. APR helps borrowers to compare different loans on an equitable basis. APR is the total cost of availing credit that a borrower has to pay to the lender, expressed in simple annual percentage. APR includes interest rate and all other costs and fees relating to a loan.

Since all the loans are expressed in terms of an APR, a standard practise in the UK loan industry, the loans have become comparable on equitable basis. Any borrower who wants to take a loan should compare it on the basis of APR, the best available measure of finding out cheap loans.

The low rate loans available with the banks and other financial institutions may require you to fulfill some conditions. The banks may ask you to provide a loan guarantee by placing your home as a security. This requirement becomes indispensable for the lenders when you want a large amount of loan, say £100,000. Lenders want to ensure that the loan that they are advancing to the consumer is backed by a concrete security. If you are ready to oblige a lender by giving your home as security, you can easily get low rate loans. In such a situation, the lender may also overlook any other shortcoming that you possess like a not so good credit rating.

In a bid to take cheap loans, you should not forget the real purpose for which you are taking a loan. It is very important that the loan fulfills your entire financial requirement and the ultimate purpose, whatever it may be. If you are confronting a situation where two loan offers are available, one slightly expensive than the other, then you should decide on the basis of collateral benefits that you are likely to derive out of two offers. The interest rate becomes unimportant in such a scenario.