Credit and Personal Finance Blog | Credit Karma

May 23rd, 2011

Refinancing RV, Motorcycle, and Boat Loans – Did you know you could?

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**Today’s guest post is contributed by MoneyAisle.**

Most of us are familiar with home loan refinances and auto loan refinances, but did you know that you can refinance an RV, motorcycle or boat, too?

The same competitive lending market that drives low rates for home and car refinances creates opportunities for borrowers with boat, RV and motorcycle loans. Essentially, lenders are trying to undersell their competition by offering you a lower interest rate on your RV, bike or boat loan. By courting these offers wisely, you can stand to save a lot of money over the years.

Motorcycle Loan Refinancing

Motorcycles provide good opportunities for refinancing because most owners take good care of their bikes and only take them out for an occasional ride during the warmer months. As such, it’s perfectly feasible that your motorcycle hasn’t depreciated much in value over the past three to five years.

That’s critical because motorcycle loan interest rates have been absolutely plunging lately. Experts believe that this trend has bottomed out, so now is a good time to lock in those low rates while your motorcycle’s value is still relatively high.

Recreational Vehicle Loan Refinancing

The market for car loan rates is good, which means the market for RV loans is good, too. But the greater opportunity for you may lie in your credit score. Credit rating factors particularly heavily into RV loan interest rates, which means that if your credit score has improved since you first financed your RV loan, then you can probably get a lower rate now.

Chances are, if you’ve been paying your current RV loan on time in addition an auto loan and/or any other type of loans you have, then your credit score is significantly higher now. It is most definitely worth it to see what kinds of RV loan interest rates you can qualify for with your new credit score.

Boat Loan Refinancing

A good marine lender is hard to find–and that usually works to the borrower’s disadvantage. If you settled for the interest rate offered by the boat dealer, you’ve likely been overpaying mightily for the past few years. You may have also made the mistake of agreeing to an adjustable rate boat loan or a balloon boat loan, which can seem attractive at first but can quickly get out of control.

You can rectify these issues and take advantage of historically low refinancing rates by moving to a different marine lender. But this time make sure you shop around—use a tool such as MoneyAisle’s Other Vehicle Loans reverse auction to find multiple boat loan issuers in your area.

How Much Can You Save?

A lower interest rate means lower monthly payments and exponentially less interest the long run. For example, if you refinanced a $25,000 loan with 120 months left at an interest rate of 10.55% to an interest rate of 5.89%, then you would save $7,424.40 over the term of the loan.

Bottom Line: it pays to explore your options when it comes to RV loans, boat loans and motorcycle loans.

MoneyAisle.com allows the once tedious undertaking of finding the best interest rate on loans to become efficient, simple, and organized by putting the entire experience in one online location where over 160 financial institutions bid for your business. Without any personal information required, consumers are empowered to find the best interest rate hassle-free.