What You Should Do if You Want to Buy a Car But Have Bad Credit
If you have bad credit, you may fear that you won’t be eligible for making major purchases throughout your adult life. In fact, if you have a credit score that is under 629, that puts you in the category of having low credit. To be able to buy a home, rent an apartment, and to even get approved for another credit card, you have to have decent credit. One of your major worries may be that you won’t be able to buy a good car. However, that doesn’t have to be the case.
When looking for new or used cars, there’s a chance you may apply for a loan. Your credit score determines how much interest you will have to pay on your car loan. The lower the score, the higher the interest. Even though this might be worrisome, you can still buy a pretty decent car even with the low number. Let’s take a look at some things you can do.
Improve Your Credit Score
If you have a little time before you absolutely need to make the car purchase, you can work to strengthen your credit score. Doing this will help so that you don’t have to pay a lot in interest. Take a look at your credit report, as there may be a chance of mistakes. If you do find mistakes on your credit report, you can take the actions to fix them, but try and wait 30 days to report the issues before beginning your shopping. Other things you can do to improve your score is pay off old debt and handling old collections issues. Doing these things will improve your score, thus making your loan interest rate a little lower than it would have been.
Consider Pre-Approval
If you’re in a credit pinch and see no way of being able to fix your score prior to looking into auto sales, talk to your bank about applying for pre-approval. The pre-approval will analyze your income, credit score, and expenses, and provide you with a letter to bring to the car dealership. If looking for a used vehicle, this letter will let the used car dealer know that you are good to shop for better approval.
Work with a Bad Credit Car Dealer
There are used car dealerships out there that help individuals with bad credit. The bad credit car dealer will see what they can do with the type of low credit loan you have. The Autotrader’s Car Buyer of the Future did a study that said 84% of consumers would rather buy a car in person. Going to a bad credit car dealership in person will help you physically see what is out there and will allow for you to make a personal connection to the used auto dealer.
Just because you have bad credit doesn’t mean it’s impossible to purchase a car. Follow the steps above to be able to see what cars are available to you for your situation.