SoFi Student Loans a Review…Personal Loans too

Social Financial (SoFi)

Overall Ranking: Recommended

Co-Founders: Mike Cagney CEO, David Macklin, David Chao

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Introduction

Social Financial is a company that provides a wide variety of loans and prides itself on promoting change to a “bankless world”. They offer student loan refinancing, personal loans, parent loans, parent plus loans, mortgages, mortgage refinancing, and MBA loans. They state on their website that when qualifying someone for a loan they “evaluate based on holistic view of financial well being rather than a three digit score”. They look at the following:

1. Career experience                            
2. Monthly income vs expenses
3. Financial history
4. Education

They state that they can save you an average of $18,936 if you refinance your student loan with them. This of course is dependent on your debt burden, the length of loan term that you choose and their holistic evaluation of you financial wellbeing.

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My Experience

After completing my graduate degree I was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. It is currently more than my mortgage payment. After graduate school I had another three years of professional training. During this time I made a decent salary but no where near enough to pay the monthly payment on my 6.8%-8% student loans. I elected for income based repayment (only paid the minimum payment) and racked up tens of thousands of dollars in interest. The plan was to continue income based repayment and work for non-profit organizations in order to qualify to have my loans forgive after 10 years of loan payments.

After three years of professional training my plans changed and I decided to take a different path as an independent contractor. I did this for a variety of reason including flexibility and tax benefits. Since I no longer qualified for loan forgiveness I researched student loan refinancing and found the lowest interest rate for a ten year fixed loan was with SoFi at a rate of 5%. I asked SoFi if that was the best rate they could give me.  I was told a lower rate would be given for shorter loan terms and longer career experience.

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Offered Loans (With listed interest rates at the time of writing this post)

Student loan refinancing

• Fixed rates range from 3.5-7.74%
• Variable rates 2.14-5.94%
• No origination fee
• $100 welcome bonus (Claim at the bottom of the page!)

Personal Loans

• 5.95-12.99%
• Loans from 5k-100k
• No origination fee or prepayment penalties
• Live customer support 7 days a week
• If you lose your job they temporarily place a pause on your payments and help you find a new job through their career advice services
• Business loans, credit card debit refinancing, etc
• $100 welcome bonus (Claim at the bottom of the page) 

Mortgages and Mortgage Refinancing

• Down payments as low as 10% up to $3 million
• Ability to buy “more house” with flexible debt-to-income ratio limits
• No application, origination or other lender fees        
• Fast Financing and online application

Parent Loans for Child’s Education

• Fixed rates starting at 4.25%
• Variable rates 2.89%
• No origination fee

Parent Plus Loans

• Fixed rates 3.5%
• Variable rates 2.14%
• No origination fee
• $100 welcome bonus (Claim at the bottom of the page) 

MBA Loans

• Fixed 6.5%
• Variable rates 4.8%

*Note that these rates are all based off enrolling in auto pay and taking advantage of its 0.25% savings

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Conclusion

If you are looking to refinance your student loans I recommend that you get prequalified for a rate today with Sofi. It does not take long and it does not affect your credit score. Shop around for the best rates! At the time that I was looking it was the lowest interest rate I could find. I was approved and the loan and funding process went fast. It was the best decision for me to make given the fact that I could no longer take advantage of the 10 year loan forgiveness programs through Fedloan.

For personal  loans you can see that it has one of the lowest, if not the lowest rate out there. Do your own research and see where you can get the lowest rate. I doubt that you will find a lower rate than what SoFi has to offer for both student and personal loans.

Special Offer

Get a $100 welcome bonus for the following:

• For Student and Parent Plus refinancing (Click here)
• For Personal Loans (Click here)

Drop a comment below with your questions, suggestions, and experiences. Let me know if you are able to find a loan with a lower rate than with SoFi.

Sincerely

Andrew

Your Passive Income Advisor