So you are thinking of going back to school? There are many sources of student financing. CanLearn is Canada’s government sponsored student loan program. It is designed to help prospective students plan out the financing methods of their post-secondary education. CanLearn can be used to plan, find, and pay your student loans or credit lines. They have broken the system down to three steps: Save, Plan and Pay.
The Saving part is the pre-planning. Here you should ask yourself: “How am I going to pay for college?” Normally this question should be addressed as early as possible, and well before you are filling out applications! Your first job should be trying to save money to help develop yourself into the skilled employee that you would like to be. The easiest way to save money is to cut your current costs. Figure out how much you can put away if you reduce needless costs. Is this number going to be enough for your education? If it is possible, try to get your parents involved; show what you can do on your own and what you need help with. Once you have figured out how much money you can put away, consider Canada’s options for investments in education: the Canadian Education Savings Grant, Registered Education Savings Plans or the Canada Learning Bond!
The Planning part is much more fun than the saving part, but still very important. Here you need to ask yourself: “What do I want to do for a living?” Take career interest tests, and experiment with new jobs or even internships. Once you have decided what your best career options appear to be, filter through the schools that offer your programs and layout all of your options. Are there some schools you would prefer? Do you meet their entrance requirements?
The Paying part can really affect the rest of your life. Now that you have saved as much as you can, your payment options are student loans, grants, and scholarships. Dig deep and apply for as many scholarships and grants as you can. Performance based scholarships have been found to not only help you pay for school, but help to maintain your focus and get better grades! If you are lucky, you have found a place of business that you would like to work after to graduate, make sure to ask them if they are interested in paying for your education! You may be surprised at the results.
The less you have to pay back when you are done, the more flexible you can be in finding the perfect job for you, so be careful and be smart! Financing your post-secondary education can be the best loan of your life.
This business financing strategy article will describe the importance of avoiding “problem commercial lenders”. The article will NOT name specific lenders to avoid, but key examples will be provided to illustrate why prudent commercial borrowers should be prepared to avoid a wide variety of existing commercial lenders in their search for viable business financing strategies.
I have been advising business owners for over 25 years, and I have encountered many business financing situations which have involved commercial lenders that I would not recommend as a result. These problematic situations have especially involved commercial mortgage loans, business cash advance situations and unsecured working capital loans. As a direct result of these experiences and daily conversations with other commercial loan professionals, I do in fact believe that there are a number of commercial lenders that should be avoided. This conclusion is typically based on more than one negative experience or an obvious pattern of lending abuses.
I have published many commercial loan articles which are designed to assist commercial borrowers in avoiding business loan problems. One of the most serious business financing situations is a commercial lender that causes business loan problems for their commercial borrowers on a recurring basis. It is particularly this type of commercial lender which prudent commercial borrowers should be prepared to avoid unless viable alternative business financing options do not realistically exist.
Here are a few examples of why certain commercial lenders should be avoided.
BUSINESS FINANCING STRATEGIES AND COMMERCIAL LENDERS TO AVOID EXAMPLE NUMBER 1 – Yes or No?
I have published an article which discusses the tendency of many banks to say “YES” when they mean “NO”. Such banks will typically attach onerous business financing conditions to commercial loans instead of simply declining the loan. Business owners should explore other commercial loan alternatives before accepting business financing terms that put them at a competitive disadvantage.
BUSINESS FINANCING STRATEGIES AND COMMERCIAL LENDERS TO AVOID EXAMPLE NUMBER 2 – The Commercial Appraisal Process
For commercial real estate loans, commercial appraisals are an unavoidable part of the commercial loan underwriting process. The commercial appraisal process is lengthy and expensive, so avoiding commercial lenders which have displayed a pattern of problems and abuses in this area will benefit the commercial borrower by saving them both time and money.
BUSINESS FINANCING STRATEGIES AND COMMERCIAL LENDERS TO AVOID EXAMPLE NUMBER 3 – Think Outside the Bank
In smaller metropolitan markets, it is not unusual for a dominant commercial lender to impose harsher commercial loan terms than would typically be seen in a more competitive commercial financing market. Such commercial lenders routinely take advantage of a relative lack of other commercial lenders in their local market. An appropriate response by commercial borrowers is to seek out non-bank business financing options. It is neither necessary nor wise for commercial borrowers to depend only upon local traditional banks for working capital and business cash advance solutions. For most business financing situations, a non-local and non-bank commercial lender is likely to provide improved commercial financing terms because they are accustomed to competing aggressively with other commercial lenders.
BUSINESS FINANCING STRATEGIES AND COMMERCIAL LENDERS TO AVOID EXAMPLE NUMBER 4 – Meaningless Pre-approvals
Commercial borrowers frequently want a commercial lender to approve their commercial loan at the earliest possible point. The assumed benefit to this early business loan approval is that it will enable the commercial borrower to make other business plans which depend on the business financing being finalized.
Because an ethical commercial lender will treat any form of an approval very seriously, commercial borrowers should expect that a meaningful version of such an approval will not be realistically possible in just two or three days. Nevertheless there are commercial lenders who provide their own special version of a pre-approval within just a few days of receiving preliminary application information. Because this abbreviated approach to pre-approvals almost always produces unexpected surprises for the commercial borrower as the business financing process goes forward, commercial borrowers need to be extremely wary of any commercial lenders that take this approach.
Why do some commercial lenders provide such meaningless pre-approvals? There are two likely reasons. (1) To motivate the commercial borrower to stop considering other potential commercial lenders. (2) To provide a pre-approval that is similar to a structure prevalent with residential mortgage loans. Since many business loans are arranged by residential mortgage brokers who are frequently unfamiliar with common business financing procedures, this reason will be especially applicable when dealing with commercial lenders that specialize in dealing with residential mortgage brokers.
Copyright 2005-2007 AEX Commercial Financing Group, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Ever wondered what the difference is between secured car loans and personal unsecured car loans and how that difference affects your finance and their repayments. The car loans terms can be only minor, but is larger when the true cost of each is taken into account.
Before discussing secured and unsecured car loans in more detail, let’s first have a look at the various workings that determine the cost of your loan and of your monthly repayments. The cost of the car finance package is the total you repay less the loan amount borrowed. Hence, let’s say you are repaying $20,000 at 12% interest rate over 36 months; you will repay at the rate of $664.29 per month. That would total a repayment of $23,914.44, and the cost of the loan would be $3,914.44 plus any set-up or administration fees. A car finance calculator will enable you to work this out for yourself.
An substitute to a car finance would be car hire purchase (HP), where you hire the car over the repayment period and get the title to the motor car with your final payment. Until then the car belongs to the HP company.
However, most finances are either secured or unsecured, and not all finance companies offer unsecured or personal loans so let’s look at secured car finance first. Secured car loans is one whereby the lender offers the loan with the car as security. If you fail to make payments, the lender can sell the car to recoup their money. It is possible to get a secured car loan when the motor vehicle gets past a certain age, often 7 years, but the car finance term or loan term may be requested to be shorter than the standard 5 yearsor not at all by using your home or some other form of security. These however are not strictly classed as a car loan. normally the car is used as security over the loan.
If you prefer you can request no deposit car finance and have all on-road costs added to the amount financed. Options like registration , loan protection insurance for disability,death or unemploymentand comprehensive auto insurance as part of the financing deal. Loan insurance makes sure that the loan is paid off in the event of your death during the loan period, and comprehensive car insurance is needed to make sure that the car is in good condition should it be needed to repay the finance in the event of you having your car repossessed.
This might look hard , but these are standard conditions for any secured loan, not only car loans. Secured car loans terms are from 1-7years, and the interest rate will be lower than that for an unsecured car finance where the financier charges extra to compensate for their added risk. As with any loan, a deposit will result in lower payments, or a shorter term, whichever you prefer.
Balloon payments could be an option on your finance package, which is like a deposit in reverse, payable at the end of the period. This is popular by those whose income will increase over the period, and they will be in a better financial position to pay a lump sum in 3 – 5 years time. This too results in either a lower monthly repayment or a shorter repayment term.
If you are buying a used motor vehicle, your car loans intererst rates can be priced very differentlyaccording to the finance company and the age of your car. Many will charge higher loan rates, and the current credit crisis has changed the outlook of many lenders to unsecured car loans in particular. Many no longer offer unsecured car finance due to the increased risk in the current economic climate.
However, they are still available, and some car loan brokers can ensure you get the best unsecured car loan available. In addition to the interest rate on such loans, you should also evaluate the fees charged, since they can involve a considerable outlay for you before you get the loan.
The key differences between secured and unsecured car finance, therefore, can be summed up as:
Secured car finance are cheaper to repay, with normally lower rates.
You need to have full comprehensive car insurance with all secured car loans, while unsecured financing does not.
Both loans could require deathinsurance cover for the finance, but secured car finance packages are more likely to.
You can sometimes include comprehensive insurance, registration and other costs in the secured loan, but with an unsecured car loan you must include the the costs on top of the amount borrowed.
Fees for unsecured car loans can be significantly higher than for secured car loans.
Not all finance companies will offer unsecured auto loans.
There few doubts that if your vehicle is young enough to be given a loan with the car as colateral, then that should be your option. You might be able to arrange a secured loan for an older vehicle with your residential home as security, but you will have to make sure to maintain the payments since lenders are becoming unsympathetic in the current economic crissis.