The Home Business Research Guide To: Business Financing and Financial Strategies.
Information, resources and tools for Business Financing for home business including articles about the SBA, financial strategies, credit card debt and financial aid for new home business start up.
In today's online business environment it is necessary to stay on top of the latest trends and current information to remain competitive. Home Business Research Guides are structured to provide you with the most up to date and relevant information on Business Financing , so that you can maintain an edge within your home and small business target market segment.
Whether you are just starting out or you have already established an online presence the Home Business Research Business Financing Guide will provide you with the latest trends and information. The following pages, within this Business Financing Guide are focused on providing you with tactics, tips and information on a variety of Business Financing and Financial Strategies topics.
Business Financing
What alternatives do you have for financing your home based or small business? The answer is not as simple as you may think. For example do you have a completely new product? Do you hold a patent? Have you researched your target market? Unfortunately the list could go on and on. If you answer is no to the above mentioned you may fall into a gray area that 95% of all entrepreneurs do. That's not so say that it's bad, it only says that you financing option may be more limited and you may have to be dependant on the most traditional methods of borrowing which may include your personal assets or friends and family.
You may say that friends and family are simply not options. Then you may have to resort to personal borrowing or a sometimes better alternative is turn to the Government for Grants or loans. The SBA is an excellent source for information and tools for funding a start up or turn to Business.gov for additional information. Of course there have been many stories of individuals starting up a business utilizing personal credit such as personal loans or credit card cash advances. This is very risky and not in your personal best interest. If you venture fails you are saddled with personal debt that you may not have the ability to pay off.
If your only alternative is personal financing here are a few credit tips:
Make sure that your credit bureau report is up to snuff. There are tons of services available, as well as dealing directly with the credit bureaus to find out what your report looks like. I tend to think that dealing directly with the credit bureaus is best because they are strictly regulated and they are known entities. If you are unfamiliar with any of the credit bureaus they are Experian, Equifax and Trans Union. You can also inquire directly to Fair Isaac, they are not a credit bureau but are the owner/developer of the FICO Credit Score, at their site MyFico.com. Each of these companies have programs that will provide you with a credit report.
When you get a copy of your report make sure that there are no open but unused credit lines. Even if you don't use that particular credit card or line of credit a lender will look at it as potential open credit that could be used at some point. Keeping a credit card, that you don't use, with an active line open is not helpful.
Check your credit score. Fair Isaac is the major provider of generic and custom scores to the consumer credit industry they are not lenders. Some lenders may also create their own scores "in-house" but they most scores generally work about the same. The point scoring systems may differ, FICO scores run anywhere to a high of 820. most lenders consider a score above 700 prime lending and you will get a good rate (APR). The target range for prime lending is sometimes like a yoyo based on economic conditions and the current loss or write-off rate of the lender. Sometimes they will consider 680-700 as lower range of prime or low-prime.
If you have applied1 for credit recently and have several applications out in the marketplace, that fact will cost you negative points on your score, although some scoring systems use intelligent algorithms and will compensate for credit shopping (usually in the automobile industry lines of business) by matching application inquiries from the same industry type. This is not always true. It's best not to allow the dealership the right to pull your bureau when you are not ready to buy. If they ask for your social and address most likely they will pull a credit bureau to see what you will qualify for in terms of rate.
All of the above factors contribute to elements of your credit score, so you need to be careful when you apply for credit.
1 The term applied means that you have either filled out an application or you have specifically given permission to a lender to pull a credit bureau.
