Finance Tips

When most people think of buying a car with bad credit, they think about big down payments and high interest rates. This is mainly due to what people have been told over the years from car dealerships. Usually, when you go to a car dealership, they will only offer a bad credit auto loan with money down.

This is because of a couple of factors…

1) The amount financed is regulated by the lenders. A loan company may approve you for the car that you want, but only finance a certain amount. When it’s less than the sale price of the vehicle, you have to come up with the difference.

2) Dealerships ask for down payments because it increases their gross profit. When they can get a maximum retail price for a car, plus a down payment on top of that, they make more money.

3) When you have negative equity in your trade-in, sometimes there isn’t enough room to add on that amount to the new loan. A down payment would be required to reduce the amount financed to fit within the guidelines set forth by the lender.

So how can you get an auto loan with bad credit, with no money down?

By using specialized lenders that work with people that have bad credit, you can pre-arrange your financing. This helps you to know what amount of car loan that you qualify for. By knowing this in advance, rather than choosing a vehicle and seeing if the numbers will work, you can know ahead of time if the vehicle will fit within your qualified loan amount.

One of the fastest and easiest ways to see what you can qualify for and also to get approved, is by trying online lenders. There are good companies that provide legitimate auto loans for people that have bad credit, with little to no money down. This can be a real life saver if you’ve been told that you’ll have to come up with a lot of cash, at a local dealership.