How much can you borrow from Laurel Road?

Personal loans let you borrow a sum of money from a lender and then pay it back in monthly installments over a set term – usually anywhere from 12 to 84 months. Those monthly payments include equal portions of the original loan amount, plus interest and fees. Personal loans can be used for debt consolidation, home improvements, vacations, big purchases and more. Understanding how things will go, from the time you apply to when you submit your final payment, is the key to making personal loans work for you.… read full answer

How Personal Loans Work

• Lenders Review Applications.

  You will need to provide personal information (such as your address and SSN), financial information (such as your income and employment status) and more. The lender will evaluate and hopefully approve you.

• Applicants Receive Funds After Approval.

  The issuer of the loan will deposit the money into your bank account as a lump sum. You can do whatever you wish with the money, unless the terms of the loan say otherwise.

• Interest Charges Accrue.

  From the day you take out the loan, the amount will begin accruing interest at a rate set by the issuer. So no matter how long it takes you to pay the loan back, you’ll always owe more than you originally took out.

• Borrowers Make Monthly Payments.

  The lender will give you a required amount to pay each month. You can pay more if you’d like, but make sure that there’s no penalty for paying the loan off earlier than the terms of the contract stipulate. Some lenders may charge a fee.

• Loan Payments Build Credit.

  The lender will report to the credit bureaus whether you’ve paid on time each month. Once you’ve paid off the entire balance, including interest and fees, the lender will report your loan as paid in full. Abiding by the terms of your loan can help increase your credit score.

Personal loans are pretty simple. You just have to make sure to submit your payments every month, and setting up automatic monthly payments from a bank account can go a long way in that regard. The most complicated part of the process is probably selecting the correct loan, but WalletHub’s comparison tool makes that easy.

Yes, a Laurel Road personal loan does affect your credit score, both when you apply and during the entire time that you are paying the loan off. Initially, a Laurel Road personal loan will affect your credit score in a negative way, but the long-term impact can be very positive, assuming you repay the loan on schedule.… read full answer

How a Laurel Road Personal Loan Affects Your Credit Score

Hard pull: When you apply for a Laurel Road personal loan, Laurel Road will do a hard inquiry into your credit history, which will temporarily drop your credit score by about 5-10 points in most cases.

Increased debt level: Taking out a Laurel Road personal loan will naturally increase the amount of debt that you have. Since your debt level is one of the components of your credit score, you can expect that to have a negative impact initially.

Account diversity: One positive way that getting a Laurel Road personal loan can impact your score right away is by adding more diversity to the types of accounts you have open. Your "credit mix" is one of the components of your credit score, and the more types of accounts you have, the better - as long as you handle them responsibly.

Payments: The biggest factor in how a Laurel Road personal loan affects your credit score is whether you pay on time. If you make on-time payments, your score should steadily increase as a result. If you pay late or fail to make payments altogether, you can expect your credit score to drop.

The bottom line is that while a Laurel Road personal loan does affect your credit score, most of the way that your score changes depends on how responsible you are with the loan. If you'd like to estimate how certain actions might affect your credit score, you can use WalletHub's free credit score simulator.

You can get Laurel Road personal loan pre-approval through the Laurel Road website. Laurel Road pre-approval allows you to see your odds of approval for a personal loan from Laurel Road, as well as your potential interest rate, and the process will have no impact on your credit score.

How to Get Laurel Road Personal Loan Pre-approval… read full answer

• Go to the Laurel Road website.
• Click on Check Your Rate in 5 Minutes.
• Enter your name, email. date of birth, Social Security number, phone number, home address, citizenship, annual income, rent/mortgage amount, loan purpose, education level and consent to do a soft pull.
• Click Continue.

Once you receive your Laurel Road pre-approval status, you can choose whether or not to actually submit an application. Getting pre-approved does not mean you're guaranteed to be approved if you apply, but your approval odds will be very high.

If you want to consider more options first, you can try out WalletHub's free personal loan pre-approval tool, which checks for pre-approval with multiple personal loan providers at the same time.