loans

Getting A Loan When You're A Tenant
By Michael D. Strauss
Wherever we go these days we're bombarded with offers of credit, whether loans, credit cards, remortgages - there seems to be no end to the number of companies asking us to consider applying for finance through them. It's true that gaining credit is easier than ever before, a fact borne out by the record levels of personal debt we see revealed in survey after survey.

Whether or not you think borrowing is a good idea, a necessary evil, or to be avoided at all costs, in the modern world it's increasingly taken for granted and many feel that easy access to credit is almost a right.

The problem for many people is that getting approved for a loan is not as easy as it might at first appear. We've all heard about the problems encountered by people who have a poor credit rating for whatever reason, but there are millions of other people with no bad credit history on their files who nonetheless find it more difficult to arrange a loan.

Many of the loans advertised on TV, in the press and online are aimed solely at homeowners. These kind of loans are known as secured loans and are fairly easy to be approved for as the applicant agrees to put their home up as security for the loan. Indeed, with house prices at an all-time high, lenders are positively falling over themselves to extend credit to homeowners, knowing full well that the high equity levels enjoyed by people who took a mortgage out before the latest property boom make it very unlikely that the lender won't be able to recoup their loan somehow, even if the borrower fails to keep up with repayments.

This is of little help to people who don't own their home though, and for these people a different kind of loan is called for : a tenant loan.

A tenant loan is a different name for an unsecured loan, or a loan which is offered without the need for collateral to back up the repayments. This lack of collateral means that the loans are more risky for the lender, which makes them more difficult to be approved for.

The first difficulty tenants face in getting a loan is that the credit checks will be more stringent, and a higher proportion of people will be rejected. If you apply for an unsecured loan from a high street bank or one of the big name lenders, the chances are you'll need to boast a good to excellent credit record, with little or no history of missed payments, defaults, or recovery action. You'll also need a regular income from employment, and this income will need to be large enough to satisfy the lender that you'll have little trouble keeping up with the repayments.

Even if you satisfy these requirements, you may still find that you're offered