These days, if someone has bad credit, there are many choices available when it comes time to buy a car.  Most dealers now have a special finance, or sub prime auto finance department to help people with bad credit buy a new or used car.  Twelve years ago, when I was first introduced to special finance, there were only a handful of national lenders in the US that catered to people with bad credit, and none in Canada.

At that time, in house, buy here pay here financing at the car lot was more popular.  These “We Finance Car Lots” would extend credit directly to consumers so they could buy a car from their lot.  There were few finance companies that serviced the bad credit market.  The lenders that did offered only short terms and high interest rates. (Read More…)