private loan consolidation?

[alicia671]

I have two private student loans being serviced by Nelnet. I pay $460 a month. I am wondering if I can get this down at least $100 a month, the total of the two is about $40,000. Also, anybody that pulls only EQ?

[lakbum]

I am not totally positive but I thought with most consolidations, the interest rates are averaged. The only way I can see payments going down to $100 a month is if the payment plan was extended. But for 40k of loans, I'm not sure if its possible to have $100 payments...

 

Good luck in finding a solution.

[alicia671]

Sorry I meant reduce the payment by $100 a mo (to roughly $360 a mo ha)

[krzywon]

You have two options to lower your monthly payments - consolidate or pay over a longer period of time. With $40k in private loans, a longer pay down period may be an option for you. What are the terms of your current loan? Interest rate and payment time frame? You might want to talk to your current lender to see if you qualify for an extended payment plan.

 

Personally, I have about $38000 in private student loans, on a "15 year" paydown schedule, but with a fixed monthly payment of $335/mo and a variable interest rate so as interest rates increase, the time to pay also increases. I recently looked for a better consolidation loan, but I couldn't find anything better than what I already have - variable LIBOR 3-month + ~2.5% (currently around 5.2%).

 

Citi had the most competitive rates I saw, with a variable rate right about what I have, with 0.25% interest rate reduction when you sign up for their automatic payment system and another 0.5% interest rate reduction after the first 48 payments are made on time. Their fixed rate loan was just over 8%. An important note here is these rates are their BEST rates offered for Tier 1 borrowers. Your rate may vary.

 

With their online calculator, these were the results:

Level Repayment Plan

Interest rate†: 8.13% (assuming fixed rate loan and you qualify for their best interest rate)

Calculated APR: 8.24%

Number of payments: 360 (30 years)

Monthly payment: $300.11

Total interest payments: $67,640

Principal repayment: $40,000

Total for principal, interest, and fees‡: $108,040

 

If you'd like to pay for that long and don't mind paying that much interest, you could potentially lower your monthly payments by $160.

[sideswipa]

You have two options to lower your monthly payments - consolidate or pay over a longer period of time. With $40k in private loans, a longer pay down period may be an option for you. What are the terms of your current loan? Interest rate and payment time frame? You might want to talk to your current lender to see if you qualify for an extended payment plan.

 

Personally, I have about $38000 in private student loans, on a "15 year" paydown schedule, but with a fixed monthly payment of $335/mo and a variable interest rate so as interest rates increase, the time to pay also increases. I recently looked for a better consolidation loan, but I couldn't find anything better than what I already have - variable LIBOR 3-month + ~2.5% (currently around 5.2%).

 

Citi had the most competitive rates I saw, with a variable rate right about what I have, with 0.25% interest rate reduction when you sign up for their automatic payment system and another 0.5% interest rate reduction after the first 48 payments are made on time. Their fixed rate loan was just over 8%. An important note here is these rates are their BEST rates offered for Tier 1 borrowers. Your rate may vary.

 

With their online calculator, these were the results:

Level Repayment Plan

Interest rate†: 8.13% (assuming fixed rate loan and you qualify for their best interest rate)

Calculated APR: 8.24%

Number of payments: 360 (30 years)

Monthly payment: $300.11

Total interest payments: $67,640

Principal repayment: $40,000

Total for principal, interest, and fees‡: $108,040

 

If you'd like to pay for that long and don't mind paying that much interest, you could potentially lower your monthly payments by $160.

 

I just applied for this loan yesterday.

 

CITI offered me 9.48% for their fixed-rate loan and an origination fee of 4%. Outrageous. My credit is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Plenty of history, low utilization, no baddies. So I'm not sure what would qualify someone for CITI's best rate. I think only God could get it and that would probably be on appeal.

 

BTW, CITI pulls TransUnion. At least it did for me.