If you’ve run up too much debt, paid your bills late and generally sentenced yourself to a future of bad credit loans, there is hope: Auto dealers are desperate to unload their unsold vehicles. They’re so anxious, in fact, that a growing number of them are passing out attractive financing even to customers who usually qualify only for pricier bad credit loans. A recent story in the Wall Street Journal said that more auto dealers are providing financing to buyers with FICO credit scores as low as 400. Not only does this make buying a new car more affordable to people with bad credit, it gives these same borrows a chance to gradually boost their credit scores. It’s a simple theory: These borrowers, once they get their auto loan, simply have to make their monthly payments on time every month. If they do this, their credit scores will steadily improve.

Attractive Auto Loans

The Wall Street Journal points to some amazing financing offers from automakers. For instance, the paper cites GMAC, which is offering 0 percent interest loans and discounted leases. Specifically, the paper points to a $499 a month, 39-month lease that GMAC is offering on the Cadillac CTS for borrowers who put $1,000 down. The same loan is offered to customers for no money down if they are already driving vehicles leased from GM. The Journal also points to Honda, which is offering its own series of attractive lease deals, including a no-money-down 36-month lease on a 2010 Honda Civic LX with payments of just $159 a month.

The paper also quotes data from Informa Research Services and J.D. Power suggesting that this trend is only beginning. The companies found that from January of 2009 through March of 2010, the average interest rate offered to consumers with the best credit dropped to nearly 5.8 percent from an earlier average of 7.1 percent.

The Time to Buy

These numbers suggest that now is a great time to buy a car. With low interest rates, consumers will find that their dollars will stretch farther than ever. They might be able to get a high-quality car for a far lower monthly payment. At the same time, they’ll be able to improve their credit scores, if they pay their car payments on time each month, and avoid a future filled with pricier bad credit loans. In today’s fiscal world, strong credit scores are a must. Lenders rely on credit scores to determine not only who can borrow from them, but how much it will cost these clients to borrow. Anything that can help consumers boost their scores – such as an affordable car loan – should be considered a prime opportunity.

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