WR - Student Loans

Quote:

Originally Posted by curimind

I am suppose to have consolidated my student loans, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. does anybody know anything about that

The first thing you need to konw is your interest rates and whether you present loans are secured or not. If they are unsecured you may not want to consolidate them if your putting up your house or car as collatoral. If they are unsecured, you have protection under the bankruptcy laws which can either dissolve them in full or at least partually. If you secure them with your house or other property and get it into financial trouble they can make you sell your property to pay the debtor. In bankruptcy court to be able to keep your property you must be able to pay for it.

First calculate the total payments of your present loans then calculate the total payments of the consoladition loan. If the new loan doesn't save you alot of money and/or cut down the number of years for payoff then you best leave things as is rather than taking the chance of lossing your house or anything else you use to secure the loan. Make sure you lock in the interest rate when you sign the loan application since they seem to wait until they increase the interest by 2 or 3 percent before approving the loan.

If they want to sell you an insurance policy on the loan if it doesn't cover unemployment and/or disability your better off getting a whole life policy that builds up value. Most loan insurance policies die once the loan is payed off so they really only benefit the loan company.

Also watch who you deal with. It's best to go to your own bank if possible. There are alot of so called loan companys that only process you loan and the next day you get a letter from some other company saying they now servicing your loan. The first outfit just shims a percent or two for signing you up which means you been screwed out of some money. I got my last mortgage from a company in florida and got a letter the next day from Countywide office about 5 miles from my house that the would be servicing the loan. I could have went to the direct and probably save a few buck in interest.

Good luck with your loan if you decide to get it.