The main gauge of the attractiveness of a loan is the interest rate that the lender will charge the borrower. The interest payment is what the borrower pays as the cost of using the lender’s money to pay for what he needs. Lending companies want to invest their money with optimal profits while borrowers who are in need for cash would find his way to get the amount he needs but would also want to minimize the expenses on loan interest as much as possible. The lower the interest rates are, the more attractive they are to borrowers but may not be as attractive to investors. Understandably, if lenders will have their way, they will be hesitant to give low interest loan while the borrowers would be delighted to see interest rates going to their lows.
Interest rates are moving up and down from time to time. These movements are determined by the prevailing loans market condition. It will be affected mainly by the availability of lenders and the demand of borrowers for loans at any given period of time. If there is abundance of lenders’ money in the market, the interest rates would fall in order to attract more borrowers that will make investor’s money roll, otherwise, if there will not be enough demands for loans, these investors’ money will just sleep in the vault. On the other hand, scarcity of lenders and high demand for loans will cause the interest rates to rise making the credit market attractive to investors enticing them to put in more money to meet the over-demand of loans. Governments have their regulatory boards to influence and regulate the interest rates so that it will not go beyond unreasonable levels.
This is true to the general credit market, this is also true to a single financial institution. When a lending company has surplus money intended for loans, it will offer low interest loan to be more competitive and entice borrowers to get their loans from this lender. Inversely, when there is scarcity of funds and people are scampering to get loans, the lending company may consider raise the interest rates to levels that people are willing pay just to be able to get their share of the scarce resources. Going beyond what is reasonable may lose the competitiveness of the company and people will start finding another lender who can offer low interest loans.
Because of competition in the market and considering the current economic environment, it is not difficult for borrowers to find low interest loan. The borrowers must exercise caution in looking for low interest loan because some lenders have their way of hiding from the prospective borrowers some costs that they will be made to pay for the loan. This would make some low interest loan more costly in the long run. When comparing low interest loans, borrowers must look into how much will be the monthly repayments they have to make for certain term of loan and compare it with the other offers for the same term of loan. Lower monthly repayments for a long-term loan could be more costly than paying higher monthly repayments for a short-term loan. Borrowers beware.