Secured And Unsecured Debt Consolidation Loans

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

There are thousands of individuals who are financially strapped for cash. Much stress and marital problems revolve around monetary issues. Before taking measures to get oneself out of a bad financial situation, it would be prudent to first ascertain the root of your monetary woes. If this were not accomplished than any action, such as obtaining secured and unsecured debt consolidation loans would only prove to be a temporary fix. Along with taking action to minimize your present financial problems, it is also crucial to address bad spending habits that may have contributed to your monetary difficulties in the first place.

If you have many sources of outstanding debt, such as large personal loans for education, medical bills or holidays, you could have all or a portion of these loans consolidated into one loan. This affords you to make one or a few smaller more affordable monthly payments. These loans take the form of both secured and unsecured debt consolidation loans.

An unsecured debt or loan is not tied to one of your assets, such as your home, boat or car. Interest rates on secured and unsecured debt consolidation loans differ in that interest rates on unsecured loans are usually higher than those on secured loans. This is due to the lender not having the security that an underlying asset provides. If you would be uneasy at the prospect of, ?putting up your home, your car or your boat? to secure a loan to lower your monthly payments, than you may want to look into obtaining an unsecured debt consolidation loan. Secured and unsecured debt consolidation loans also vary in that unsecured debt consolidation loans will only include those loans that are unsecured or not backed by collateral such as personal loans and credit cards.

With regard to secured and unsecured debt consolidation loans, secured loans offer lower interest rates with the convenience of merging both secured and unsecured debt into one monthly payment. This would be advantageous in that you would only have to deal with one instead of multiple creditors. It would also easier for those with not-so-perfect credit to obtain secured debt consolidation loans because the loan would be secured with some type of collateral.

Offering your home as collateral would likely afford you the least expensive option when searching for a consolidation loan to merge your secured and unsecured debt into one loan. However, you should only consider this if you would be willing to risk your home as the lender could take it from you if you were unable to make your monthly payments. Other sources of collateral could be your automobile or boat. Some lenders may accept stocks and bonds or expensive jewellery or electronics.

Before deciding on secured and unsecured debt consolidation loans, it would be prudent to compare lenders so that you could choose the financial institution with the best rates and terms to meet your needs. Reviewing different lenders would also guard against predatory lenders who try to take advantage of those in financial trouble by charging higher than normal interest rates.