Getting a loan after bankruptcy is, of course, difficult, but as long as you accept that up front you can move forward deciding how to work through that situation, and even try to make doing this part of a plan to rebuild your credit for the future, so things will be easier for you later.

You want to start rebuilding your credit immediately after everything has been finalized. Of course, it will be nearly impossible finding a lender at this point, but that’s ok. There are two kinds of payments that make up credit history: revolving (credit cards) and installment (loan) payments. In order to find a lender we’ll start with giving you a bit of positive history after the filing.

Of course, you won’t be able to go out and get a traditional credit card, but banks have created a product for this, secured credit cards. Basically, you deposit a few hundred dollars into a savings account, and this works as the collateral for your card, and sets your credit limit. You use this card, lightly (preferably less than thirty person of your limit each month) and pay it off each month.

Six months to a year after doing this you can look into getting a loan after bankruptcy.

You’re going to want to have prepared a short explanation (one to two sentences) as to why you had these financial problems-they will care, but you also don’t want to draw too much focus on this. Then you want to emphasize your other strengths, for instance, a healthy income, your secured credit card payments in your recent history, your goals for credit rebuilding, and your stability in the community if you’ve lived at your same residence for a long period of time and had the same employer for a while.

You will probably have to shop around for a lender, and talk to special financing departments, but this is ok. High interest rates are going to be a part of the deal, inevitably. This is a part of the deal that really has to be accepted. But, once you pay this off and handle those high rates, you’ll improve your score, and be offered lower rates in the future, so even though things are not great now, there is still hope!

Getting a loan after bankruptcy is difficult, but it doesn’t have to be impossible as long as you shop around, and keep working on your credit.