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Home Business Loans Business Loans Guide Guide To Refinancing Business Loans
There are two primary reasons you may want to refinance your small business loan: lowered interest rates or a major shift in the market.
Business owners have enough to worry about right now to continue paying higher interest rates when refinancing is an option. So what do you need to know about the refinancing process and how can you refinance existing small business loans? Let’s review.
Refinancing a business loan is the process of taking out a new loan with better rates to pay off existing debts. This process allows small business owners to transfer loans with a higher cost of capital (think: short term loans, ACH loans, etc.) to loans with longer terms and lower interest rates (like a business term loan or SBA loan).
Refinancing offers several benefits for small business owners, including:
When looking for refinancing options, it’s important to keep in mind the potential benefits your business seeks. Refinancing has the potential to increase your monthly cash flow by decreasing payments. Done improperly, however, refinancing can actually increase your financial burden.
You’ll need to work through a few considerations to ensure refinancing is a viable solution for your business:
Some of your old loans may have prepayment penalties. These penalties are essentially an attempt by lenders to recoup some of the interest they’ll lose when you pay the balance of your loan early. You’ll have to look through the fine print of your existing loans to discover whether you’ll face a prepayment penalty if you pay them off early.
Prepayment penalties aren’t necessarily a nail in the coffin for businesses looking to refinance. When doing your calculations, if you add the prepayment penalty to the total of your debts and find that a refinancing option will still lower your monthly payments despite the added expense, it may be worth refinancing after all.
You should know these details for each of your existing debts:
With this information in front of you, it should be easy to decide which refinancing option will work for you.
Each lender has their own minimum business loan requirements. Common factors lenders look at include:
Some reasons your access to attractive refinancing options may be limited include:
In short, if your business is in the same state as it was when you originally took on debt—it’s unlikely you’ll find better terms. As such, the timing of your decision to refinance is crucial. You want to refinance when your credit score is stronger and your revenues are steady to drastically increase your chances of finding better terms.
Lendio’s online marketplace makes it easy to compare multiple loan offers and see if you can qualify for an attractive refinancing offer. Simply fill out a single application, and we’ll connect with the right loan product and lender for your business.
You can typically refinance traditional loan products like business term loans, ACH loans, business lines of credit, and business credit cards. If you have an SBA loan that you’re looking to refinance, that may be trickier.
Why would you want to finance with an SBA loan? SBA loans are government-insured so they generally have good terms. Here’s what the SBA says about refinancing current debts with an SBA loan:
“It is possible to refinance loans that small businesses have outstanding with the SBA 7(a) loan program. Basic requirements include that the purpose of the original loan(s) would have been SBA eligible. The proposed loan needs to provide the borrower with a substantial benefit demonstrated by the payment amount being at least 10% less than the existing loan.”
If you expected more loan forgiveness than you receive with a PPP loan, you may be asking yourself if you can refinance the loan. The government created PPP loans in response to the magnitude of the coronavirus crisis. As a result, they have pretty much the lowest rates and best terms you’ll find. So, while full forgiveness may be your first choice, PPP loan terms are your second.
Loan stacking is the process of taking out new business loans without paying your existing creditors back first. Refinancing is different because you use the new loan to repay the initial debts. You will still have a balance on your loan that needs to be repaid, but the goal of refinancing is to secure better rates and terms.
Are you considering refinancing your business debt? It’s not a bad idea, especially if you’ve been in business for a few years and those early loans are costing you a pretty penny. But just like you wouldn’t want to rush blindly into a new loan, you don’t want to race off and refinance without first doing your due diligence.
Why? Because refinancing is not always the best option. There are specific scenarios and times in the life of your business when it will make sense, and there are many others when it won’t. We’re here to help you recognize the go-ahead signs so you can seize the moment when it’s right. Below, we’re going to break down the 7 most common signs that indicate you’re ready to refinance your business loan. If you recognize any of these signs, there’s a good chance it’s prime time to refinance.
When your business was brand new and you were desperate for capital, you probably had to take whatever financing you could find. We get it—starting a business is hard. If you had little to no business credit, you likely got stuck with higher interest rates. No, you didn’t necessarily make a bad choice at the time, but if your credit score has dramatically improved (which it likely has), refinancing could save you a lot of money.
First, take a look at your credit score. If the first digit of your credit score has gone up, then that’s a good sign that it’s time to refinance. And if your score has suddenly peaked over 700, then that’s another positive indicator that refinancing could help you gain significant savings. If you need help moving your business credit in the right direction, take a look at our comprehensive business credit page. It’ll show you how your business score is calculated, tips to build better credit, and how to fix a low score.
It might not feel like it sometimes, but year after year of monthly payments eventually puts a hefty dent in your loan. The bigger that dent is, the more business equity you have. And the more equity you have, the better you’re positioned to gain a better loan rate through refinancing.
Plus, if you have a commercial mortgage, you can refinance to convert some of that equity into liquidated cash. Refinancing to draw equity out of your property or asset isn’t always a good long-term plan for dealing with debt, but it can help you consolidate loans or cover your business in an emergency.
If current interest rates have dipped by at least 1 point, then now may be an excellent time to refinance. Keep an eye on the market and your industry to spot trends. Less risk for lenders means better loans for you. During times of economic growth, lenders will generally offer more favorable rates and terms.
If your cash flow is low and you can’t find any other opportunities to cut costs, you may need to refinance. Even if you can’t obtain a better rate, you might be able to extend your loan repayment schedule—this extension will lower your monthly payments and free up some extra cash each month. Ideally, you’ll be able to find a better rate and optimal terms, but you may just have to pay more interest over the life of your loan in exchange for cash now.
Lenders don’t just look at your credit score when determining your interest rates, loan amounts, and terms. They also look at your financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, cash flow, etc.), business plans, collateral, accounts receivable, accounts payable—there are a lot of factors.
Because lenders look at so many different influencers, several milestones could make it prime time for refinancing:
Starting and growing a business often takes multiple forms of financing. You could have a commercial mortgage, equipment financing, a short term loan, and more all at the same time. These loans can start to add up, and staying on top of all the monthly payments can become a complicated chore.
When this becomes an issue, you can consolidate your multiple smaller loans into one jumbo loan. This specific type of debt refinancing can help you establish a regular payment schedule, which can help you make your payments on time and prevent hurting your credit score. Plus, if you have multiple short term loans, they likely have higher interest rates. Combining them into one larger loan will probably help you free up some extra cash.
Refinancing has a cost, so it only makes sense to refinance if you’re going to stay in business long enough to recoup the up-front expenses. You’ll have to pay appraisal fees, application fees, closing costs, and possibly prepayment penalties. You can get a pretty accurate breakdown of the expected fees ahead of time so that you understand what you’re getting yourself into.If you’ve looked through these signs and decided the time is right to refinance, congratulations! You’re one step closer to reducing your monthly payments and moving your business in the right direction.
Successful refinancing of your debt will reduce your monthly payments and consolidate your debts into a single payment, reducing your stress and giving you more time to focus on building your business. If the timing is right, refinancing can be a no-brainer.
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Jesse Sumrak is a Social Media Manager for SendGrid, a leading digital communication platform. He's created and managed content for startups, growth-stage companies, and publicly-traded businesses. Jesse has spent almost a decade writing about small business and entrepreneurship topics, having built and sold his own post-apocalyptic fitness bootstrapped startup. When he's not dabbling in digital marketing, you'll find him ultrarunning in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Jesse studied Public Relations at Brigham Young University.
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