Consolidation Loans - The Pros And Cons

A consolidation loan is a loan that is designed to pay off smaller debts, enabling the borrower to enjoy easier financial management and increased affordability. Consolidation loans are available both on a secured and an unsecured basis, and are available from a wide range of lenders, from high street banks to online lenders.

Consolidation loans can be a very effective way of improving debt management when used responsibly. However, you do need to consider the pros and cons of consolidation loans before you opt for this type of loan, as this will help you to determine whether this is the right type of loan for your needs.

The pros

- A consolidation loan can make financial management far easier, as you will only have to make repayments to one lender and on one loan rather than on several debts to a variety of creditors. This can make financial management far easier, less time consuming, and less of a hassle.

- Consolidating your debts can help to reduce your monthly repayments by a considerable amount in some cases, which means that you will be left with more disposable income each month in addition to easier financial management.

- Consolidating your debts can help to reduce the risk of missed or late repayments, which can then adversely affect your credit rating. This is because there are fewer outgoings to deal with and possible less to pay out each month.

- A consolidation loan is available on a secured or an unsecured basis, and is therefore accessible by both homeowners and non-homeowners. However, an unsecured consolidation loan is usually only available to those with good credit.

- Consolidating your debts will enable you to get rid of high interest debts such as credit and store cards that could otherwise take you decades to pay off. You could end up saving money in interest over the term of the loan compared to what you would have paid on your credit and store cards over the full term based on minimum repayments.

The cons

- If you want to take out an unsecured consolidation loan you will need to have good credit. A secured consolidation loan will be secured against your home, and any defaults on repayments could put your home at risk.

- A consolidation loan could lead to increased debts unless you exercise willpower. You need to avoid running up further debt after taking out a consolidation loan otherwise you will find yourself in a worse situation than when you started.

- Depending on the debts that you consolidate your monthly repayments may not necessarily go down by much or at all. However, you will still be able to enjoy easier management of your finances.

Loans4 provide Consolidation loans for UK homeowners. We specialise in loans for consolidation of your existing credit commitments enabling you to reduce your outgoings to an affordable level and have just one low APR loan.