How Soon After Buying a Car Can I Refinance

by Anonymous
(Parts Unknown)

Question: I just bought a car but the interest rate is high and I was wondering how soon after buying a car I can refinace my auto loan.

Answer: When you can refinance your auto loan will depend on your current and future credit rating, your credit score when you refinance, plus what caused you to get such a high interest rate in the first place.

An important aspect to being able to refinance is going to be you staying on top of your credit. Make sure there are now new problems that pop up between now and your refinance and also try to make an effort to clean up past credit problems.

If you haven't looked at your credit, then I'd suggest you do that now: Check your Credit Score - Fast, Free & Easy at CreditReport.com.

The more serious the problems, i.e. repossessions, foreclosures, etc. the longer it will be until you can refinance your auto loan.

Each one of those will stay on your credit file for 7 years and once a car is repo'd or a home foreclosed on, there is not much you can do to get it off your credit report, except to wait the 7 years.

You'd probably need to wait a minimum of 2-3 years to refinance in the scenario above, but a lot of this will depend on what other credit you do or don't have or had in the past and how you pay on your current auto loan.

If on the other hand you simply have some smaller medical collections and maybe a slow paid credit card, then you could expect to refinance your auto loan quite a bit sooner.

The faster you can clean up these small accounts the sooner you can look to refinance. Even in this case, you'd probably still need to pay on your current loan for a minimum of 12-18 months.

There are quite a few variables involved here regarding your overall credit, job history, monthly income, vehicle info (year, miles) and on and on that I don't know, so it would be real hard to say for sure.

Keep in mind, that refinancing is typically harder to do than it is to buy the car, so the more you can do to speed up the process (i.e. fix your credit issues) the faster you can refi.

In addition, the severity of your credit issues will be a big factor as well. Definitely review your credit and use some of the points above to evaluate the major or minor issues affecting your current rate and your future refinance.

Don't hesitate to get back in touch with me if you have any more specific questions...

Take care,
Justin