I wish to take out a large loan (£18,000) to consolidate many credit card debts. There are multiple loans available to me (via credit report sites like TotallyMoney/ClearScore) with rates much lower than my credit card rates.
When I search for loans at half that amount, there are several more offers from lenders. In most cases, the rates are about the same (a couple are lower, some higher) but not significantly different.
So I am thinking that my chances of getting approved for two simultaneous smaller loan applications are probably higher (less risk to the lenders).
However, my main concern is that one lender will see the hard credit search from the other lender when they do their hard search and this may put them off.
Can I expect the hard credit searches of the lenders to appear immediately? And if one does see the hard search from the other, is this likely to be very damaging? Or would applying for two loans at the same time be considered reasonable?
In all cases the loans are supposedly "pre-approved" with "100%" chance of acceptance. However I really doubt that for a large loan this is anywhere near true, and suspect that smaller loans are more likely to come through!
Please note that I am not asking whether taking out a consolidation loan at all is a good/bad idea! I'm certain that in my circumstances (large lump sum coming in 12 months) it is a sensible way to reduce my interest payments. I'm only interested in opinions on whether two simultaneous applications for smaller loans is a better or worse bet in terms of chances of acceptance.
Many thanks
original posted by IMCuriousorange to r/personalfinance on Thu, 18 Apr 2024 12:23:44 GMT.