How to Get a Swimming Pool When You Don’t Have the Cash

These hot summer months leave many people wishing they had a quick, easy way to cool off. Installing a pool in your backyard may seem like a pipe dream, but there are ways to finance such home improvements if you don’t want to wait and save enough to pay cash for it.

If you have a high enough credit limit, you may be able to put the pool on a credit card, but a personal loan or home equity loan is likely a better deal. Credit cards can carry much higher interest rates, not to mention the fact that you want to keep your credit card balances as low as possible relative to your total amount of available credit so that you don’t hurt your credit score.

How to Get a Pool Loan

There are financing companies dedicated to helping you pay for a pool, and there are also lenders with personal loan products you can use for a pool. Alternatively, home equity loans are used for home improvement, and if a pool is how you’d like to use such credit, you may be able to do so.

Each of these options requires you to have decent credit, otherwise you may not obtain approval, or if you do, the interest rates may exceed that of a credit card. For example, Lyon Financial, a 35-year-old pool-financing company, offers a fixed rate pool loan at 4.99%, but it lists a 700-point credit-score minimum for that, its lowest rate.

Lending Club also offers low, fixed-rate loans, but as with most credit products, your actual rate depends on how much you want to borrow, the term of the loan and your credit history.

Good Credit Makes Luxury More Affordable

If you want a reasonable financing plan to help you install a pool, you’ll need to consider a variety of factors, including your credit score. Good credit helps you qualify for low interest rates, which will help you keep the cost of financing lower in the long term. You can see two of your credit scores for free every month on Credit.com.

You may learn you can improve your credit utilization by using less of your available credit limits (or increase your limits without increasing your spending). Reducing your credit utilization is a quick way to tack on some points to your credit score. If you have a late payment on your credit report, there’s not much you can do other than let its impact fade with time, but it’s important you make all loan payments on time going forward.

In order to make a loan more affordable, you’ll want to follow basic financing guidelines. Most important, don’t borrow more than you need to. A pool may be fun to have, but you don’t want to chase luxury at the expense of your credit standing. Like any other loan product, failing to repay your pool loan will have serious negative effects on your credit, and that may be a problem when you want to finance something you really need.

More Money-Saving Reads:

• What’s a Good Credit Score?
• What’s a Bad Credit Score?
• How Credit Impacts Your Day-to-Day Life

Image: NinaMalyna