Car Tips and Articles

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If you’re like most people, you don’t have a lot of time to futz around with getting a car loan. Luckily, there are quite a few things you can do to decrease the amount of time you’ll spend getting the loan you need.

Regardless of your credit score or credit history, here are some tips you can use to save time:

1) Collect all the necessary paperwork. Be sure to include a paystub, which will prove your income. A recent electric, phone, or cable bill should be included to show your residence. If you have filed bankruptcy and/or have collections or other credit issues, find all that paperwork as well. The last thing you must be sure to do is to include any paperwork dealing with problems arising from a messy divorce. All of this paperwork should be gathered together and taken with you when you go to see a lender to prevent you from having to make several trips.

2) Most loan applications ask for three or more personal references, friends or relatives that do not live with you. Don’t be one of those people who scrambles around looking for the name, addresses, and phone numbers of their personal references while they are filling out their application. Write down their information beforehand, and you will save a lot of time when you complete your loan application.

3) Talk to your boss, office manager, or human resources department. When you apply for an auto loan, most lenders will call and verify your employment. Let the person in charge of employment verification know that you’re expecting an auto lender to call about you - that way they’ll be ready to provide what the bank needs quickly and accurately.

4) You should find out the exact amount of your payoff if you have a trade-in. If you estimate your payoff and your new lender uses this estimate as an exact value, a couple different problems may arise. If it turns out that your payoff is significantly higher than what you estimated, your loan might have to be re-approved for the actual (higher) amount. If it turns out that your payoff is significantly lower than what you estimated, you may have been eligible for a lower interest rate than the one you got that was based on your estimated payoff. If you find out your exact payoff before applying for a new car loan, you will save everyone time and may save yourself money.

5) Be as accurate and truthful as you possibly can. You may be required to list former residences, former employers, etc. when you fill out your credit application. Accurately listing this information on your application will lead to faster processing. Don’t lie on your credit because, more than likely, your auto lender will find out and then check every other aspect of your credit. This will considerably slow your application approval or cause your application to be turned-down.

Follow these five tips and your next car loan application will be processed quickly and efficiently, and you’ll get your loan as fast as possible!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 3:13 am and is filed under Car Loans, Cars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.