How can I judge loan availability?
It sounds like your current loan is in your name. As such, you are responsible for paying it. Not your family, you. It also sounds like the loan payments are regularly late. That'll likely drastically affect your credit rating. Given what you've said, it doesn't surprise me that you were declined for a credit card. With the information on your credit report, you are a poor risk. Assuming your family is unable to pay loan on time (and assuming you aren't willing to do so), you desperately need to get your name off the loan. This may mean selling the property and closing out the loan. This won't be enough to fix your credit, though. All that will do is stop making your credit worse. It'll take a few years (five years in Canada, not sure how many years in India) until this loan stops showing up on your credit report. That's why it is important to do this immediately. Now, can a bank give you a loan or a credit card despite bad credit? Yes, absolutely. It all depends on how bad your credit is. If the bank is willing to do so, they'll most likely charge a higher interest rate. But the bank may well decide not to give you a loan. After all, your credit report shows you don't make your loan payments on time. You may also want to request your own copy of your credit report. You may have to pay for this, especially if you want to see your score. This could be valuable information if you are looking to fix your finances, and may be worth the cost. If you are sure it's just this one loan, it may not be necessary. Good luck! Edit: In India CIBIL is the authority that maintains records. Getting to know you exact score will help. CIBIL offers it via TransUnion. The non-payment will keep appearing on your record for 3 years. As you don't have any loans, get a credit card from a Bank where you have Fixed Deposits / PPF Account as it would be easier to get one. It can then help you build the credit. Your credit rating will rise once the loan is repaid or paid regularly (in time). It will not get back to normal instantly. If the property is dead weight you may want to sell it so your credit score will increase in the medium term.
I asked my realtor, but she recommends to go with just one banker   (her friend), and not to do any rate shopping. You need a new realtor. Anyone who would offer such advice is explicitly stating they are not advocating on your behalf.  I'd do the rate shopping first. When you make an offer, once it's accepted, time becomes critical. The seller expects you to go to closing in so many days after signing the P&S. The realtor is specifically prohibited from pushing a particular lender on you. She should know better.  In response to comment - Rate Shopping can be as simple as making a phone call, and having a detailed conversation. Jasper's list can be conveyed verbally. Prequalification is the next step, where a bank actually writes a letter indicating they have a high confidence you will qualify for the loan. Some aspects of your general financial lifestyle make a big difference in your score. Always pay late; declare bankruptcy; have bills go to collection, these will hurt your overall score.  Some aspects of your life start with a low score and rise over time: the number of years you have had credit. Some only have short term and transient impacts: what is your utilization rate today; when was your last hard pull. Any agonizing you do over the transient aspects during a period of time when your score doesn't matter, is a waste of energy. If you are looking for a new mortgage, or a another type of loan, then act in a way that will improve your score. But If you see no immediate need then don't sweat the details. If your credit limit is too low for your lifestyle, then ask for it to be increased. Just don't ask for the increase a few days before you put in the auto loan application. It looks like the rate on that first loan is 6-2/3%?  When I look at $72000 principal and a $500 payment, I'm seeing a long term, 24 years. Not 60, but not good either.  Yes, as you pay a bit of principal, the next payment has less interest and even more principal.  I hope your degree is in a field that's lucrative. Or that you're able to get a job that qualifies you for loan forgiveness over time. I'm sorry that advice might seem weak, but aside from that, the best I can offer is to live well beneath your means, i.e. continue to live like a student, and make additional payments.  As far as bi-weekly goes, the lender may not accept partial payments. Set aside the money every two weeks and when you have extra money just make an extra payment amount toward principal.  To pay this off as fast as possible, I'd make as high an extra payment as I could each month to the loan with the higher rate. If the rates are the same, pay it off to the one with the lower balance.  With respect to the debt snowballers, followers of The David, say the rates are simply close, say .25% apart, with the lower balance having the lower rate. If you were to pay this one first, it would occur sooner, of course, and free up that monthly payment, helping your cash flow. But, it comes at a cost.  Note - if, as Noah suggests, the rates are the same, I'd advise to make all extra payments toward the lower balance. That will get you to the point where you've freed up that cash flow for other purposes, whether it's to focus on the higher loan, or anything else you need this for. You should also be aware that there are banks that do business in the US that do not deal with Fannie Mae, and thus are not subject to the rules about conforming loans.  Here is an example of a well-known bank that lists two sets of rates, with the second being for loans of $750,000 or more (meaning the first covers everything up to that) https://home.ingdirect.com/orange-mortgage/rates Banks calculate the total they can present to you chiefly on your net review earnings. They get into explanation their preceding experience and your present track record which would point to whether you have taken any other loan or you have had a awful credit history and effects like your investments history and your existing investments before making a choice as to how much they will lend to you. It could be a couple of things besides extra principal: I seem to remember hearing that some (shady?) lenders would just pocket extra payments if you didn't specify where they were headed, but I've also been told that this just isn't true. Hi guys, have a question from my uni finance course but I’m unsure how to treat the initial loan (as a bond, or a bill or other, and what the face value of the loan is).  I’ll post the question below, any help is appreciated.  “Hi guys, I have a difficult university finance question that’s really been stressing me out....  “The amount borrowed is $300 million and the term of the debt credit facility is six years from today  The facility requires minimum loan repayments of $9 million in each financial year except for the first year.  The nominal rate for this form of debt is 5%. This intestest rate is compounded monthly and is fixed from the date the facility was initiated.  Assume that a debt repayment of $10 million is payed on 31 August 2018 and $9million on April 30 2019. Following on monthly repayments of $9 million at the end of each month from May 31 2019 to June 30 2021.  Given this information determine the outstanding value of the debt credit facility on the maturity date.”  Can anyone help me out with the answer? I’ve been wracking my brain trying to decide if I treat it as a bond or a bill.”  Thanks in advance, I'm not saying it's great, but I have a 705... I think we'll get a second opinion to lower that rate. Also, logically, with a higher down payment, we should be able to reduce the amount we need to borrow. Is that how that would work? For example, if we scrounged up a $7,000 for a down payment and came down on the price say $3,000 The loan is very likely to be syndicated, yes. I only state 7-10 because all of our loans to this point have been 7 year terms. And in many ways, this loan is just one of those loans, multiplied out in a modular sense. I'm a third-year PhD student in Finance at a state university in the Southeast.  Accordingly, I do not have time write a detailed answer for you, because I am studying for a test.  You can PM me sometime after Thursday, and I can give you my perspective. In some cases, especially but not only for subprime loans, they are actually testing whether you will lie to them. (Discovered this when working on a loan origination applicatíon for car dealers -- they explicitly did not want us to autocomplete some values because that might remind applicants that answers would be checked.) You'd probably need to prove you can run the business if you want a loan. The best proof you can have is to run the business.  Unfortunately that also means that the price of the alley could go up. OP needs to start thinking about a negotiation strategy soon. Is there anything here I should be deathly concerned about? A concern I see is the variable rate loans. Do you understand the maximum rate they can get to? At this time those rates are low, but if you are going to put funds against the highest rate loan, make sure the order doesn't change without you noticing it. What is a good mode of attack here?  The best mode of attack is to pay off the one with the highest rate first by paying more than the minimum. When that is done roll over the money you were paying for that loan to the next highest. Note if a loan balance get to be very low, you can put extra funds against this low balance loan to be done with it. Investigate loan forgiveness programs. The federal government has loan forgiveness programs for certain job positions, if you work for them for a number of years. Some employers also have these programs.  What are the payoff dates for the other loans? My inexact calculations put a bunch in about 2020 but some as late as 2030. You may need to talk to your lender. They might have a calculator on their website.  Why do my Citi loans have a higher balance than the original payoff amounts? Some loans are subsidized by the federal government. This covers the interest while the student is still in school. Non-subsidized federal loans and private loans don't have this feature, so their balance can grow while the student is in school. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to save up and wait to make a payment on any of these loans.  Any dollar you pay today works better than saving it and waiting months to pay it, no matter which loan it will be applied to. Since your lender won't let you choose which loan your payment is being applied to, don't worry about it.  Just make as big a payment as you can each month, and try to get the whole thing out of your life as soon as possible. The result of this will be that the smaller balance loans will be paid off first, and the bigger balance loans later.  It is unfortunate that the higher interest rate loans will be paid later, but it sounds like you don't have a choice, so it is not worth worrying about. Instead of thinking of it as 5 loans of different amounts, think of it as one loan with a balance of $74,000, and make payments as quickly and as often as possible. For example, let's say that you have $1000 a month extra to throw at the loans.  You would be better off paying $1000 each month than waiting until you have $4000 in the bank and paying it all at once toward one loan.  How the lender divides up your payment is less significant than when the lender gets the payment. "I am a bit confused here as to how a 4K loan will negatively effect your credit score if payments are made on time.  FICO scores are based upon how well you borrow.  If you borrow, pay back on time, your score will not go down.  Perhaps a bit in the short run when you first secure the loan, but that should come back quickly.  In the long run it will help improve your score which seems like it would be more important to you. Having the provider finance your loan will probably not show up on your credit unless you fail to pay and they send to collections. If the score is so important to you, which I think is somewhat unwise, then use a credit card.  With a 750 you should be able to get a pretty good rate, but assume it is 18%.  In less then 9 months you will have it paid off, paying about $293 in interest.  You could consider that a part of the cost of doing business for maintaining a high credit score.  Again not what I would advise, but it might meet your needs. One alternative is go with lending club.  With that kind of score, you are looking at 7% or so.  At $500 a month, you are still looking at just over 8 months and paying about $100 in interest.  Much less money for improving your credit score. Edit based upon the comment: ""My understanding is that using a significant portion of your available credit balance is bad for your credit, even if you pay your bills on time."" Define bad.  As I said it might go down slightly in the short term.  In three months you will have almost 33% of the loan paid off, which is significantly lower then the original balance.  If you go the credit card route, you may be approved for quite a bit more then the 4000, which may not move the needle at all.  Are you planning on buying a home in the next 90 days?  If not, why does a small short term dip matter?  Will your life really be effected if your score goes down to 720 for three months? Keep in mind this is exactly the kind of behavior that the banks want you to engage in.  If you worship your FICO score, which gives no indication of wealth then you should do exactly what I am suggesting."