Personal Loans

How to Get a $100,000 Loan

There aren’t many lenders willing to lend $100,000 through a personal loan, but you can find them if you look. If you want to borrow $100k, you should also consider alternatives like HELOCs or home equity loans.

TJ Porter

10/02/2020

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There are many scenarios in which people need to borrow cash, but some cases are more extreme than others. It’s one thing to borrow a few hundred bucks, but taking out a $100,000 loan is something else entirely. Who will lend you so much money, and how will you pay it back?

There are some reasonable situations where you’d want to borrow $100,000 or more. You might have a plan to renovate your home or rehab some rental real estate. You could also use the money for debt consolidation if you have a lot of credit card debt or huge medical bills.

If you need to borrow $100,000, personal loans are a great way to do it. This guide will cover your options for getting a $100,000 loan, as well as other avenues you can consider for borrowing large amounts of cash.

In this guide:

Where to find a $100,000 loan
How to get a $100k loan
Costs of a $100,000 personal loan
Factors to consider
Other ways to get a $100,000 loan

Where to find a $100,000 loan

Most banks and credit unions offer personal loans, and there are many online lenders that specialize in personal lending as well. That means you have a lot of options to choose from when seeking a personal loan.

The trick, though, is finding a lender that offers $100,000 loans, since many lenders have loan limits of $50,000 or less. Typically, to get a loan that large, you will need good or excellent credit.

The lender below is a great option for those with a good to excellent credit score and offers loans up to $100,000.

LightStream

View Rates

3.49% – 19.99%
with AutoPay

$5,000 – $100,000

660+

LightStream ranks as our best overall personal loan partner and they offer a maximum loan amount of $100,000. Highlights of a LightStream personal loan include low fixed rates, no fees, and a Rate Beat program in which they will beat any rate a competitor offers by 0.10 percentage points. If you have excellent or good credit and are looking for a $100,000 personal loan, LightStream is a great option.

Credit score category: Excellent, good
Soft credit pull to check rates: Not available
Deposit time: As soon as the same day
Origination fee: 0%
Late fee: None
Discounts: 0.50% interest rate reduction for enrolling in autopay
Repayment terms: 24 – 144 months

Getting a $100,000 loan if you have fair or bad credit

It can be difficult to get such a large loan if you have fair or bad credit. Many financial institutions use high origination fees and interest rates to mitigate their risk, meaning you’ll pay more to borrow if your credit is less than great.

Additionally, none of the fair credit lenders and bad credit lenders that we’ve reviewed offer loans as high as $100,000. Because of this, we recommend either requesting a smaller loan amount or considering some of the alternative options we cover later in the post.

Pros & cons of a $100,000 personal loan

Pros

You can use the money to consolidate loans or finance large projects
No collateral required
Apply easily online or in-person

Cons

Can be hard to find a lender willing to offer $100,000 or more
The loan will be expensive unless you pay it off quickly
You might have to offer collateral
Personal loan rates are usually higher than other loans, like home equity loans

How to get a $100k loan

Though the exact process for getting a $100,000 loan varies from lender to lender, there will be some similarities regardless of the lender you choose.

The first thing you’ll have to do is choose a lender and fill out a loan application. This means figuring out how much you want to borrow and providing some personal information. You will also have to submit to a credit check in most cases.

The lender reviews your application and approves or denies it. If you’re approved, the lender will send you an offer with interest rates and term options. You can choose the loan that best meets your needs. Once you’ve accepted the loan, the lender will deposit the cash to your checking account.

Depending on the lender, the decision process can take as little as one business day or as long as two weeks. Some lenders specialize in quick approvals while others take more time to make decisions. If time is a concern, look for online lenders that specialize in quick approval.

What you’ll need to apply

When you apply for a personal loan, you’ll have to provide some personal information and documentation. Lenders need to know your financial situation to make a lending decision, so try to leave your potential lenders with as few questions as possible.

When you fill out an application, you’ll have to provide things like:

Your name
Your address
Government ID and ID numbers (Driver’s license number, Social Security number)
Your employer
Your living situation (Do you rent or own? What’s your monthly housing payment?)
Your annual income and proof of that income
The loan purpose

Your lender will combine the information that you provide with information it learns from your credit report to make its lending decision.

How much is a $100,000 personal loan going to cost me?

The exact cost of a $100,000 personal loan varies with both the term of the loan and the APR. Generally, longer terms and higher rates lead to higher total interest paid, while shorter terms and lower rates lead to lower costs.

This table has some examples that show how the interest rate and term affect the cost of a $100,000 loan. If you have more specific numbers in mind, you can also run them through our personal loan calculator.

APR	Term	Monthly payment	Total amount repaid
6%	60 months	$1,933	$115,997
6%	120 months	$1,110	$133,225
10%	60 months	$2,125	$127,482
10%	120 months	$1,322	$158,581

Consider these 4 factors when comparing personal loans up to $100,000

When you borrow $100,000, you’re making a big commitment. It will likely take years to pay the loan off, so you want to make sure that you choose your lender carefully. When comparing different loan offers, you should compare these factors:

APRs: Unlike simple interest rates, annual percentage rates account for any fees associated with the loan, making APRs a better thing to compare than interest rates if you want to understand two loans’ comparative costs.
Term lengths: Longer repayment terms give you more time to make payments and result in lower monthly payments. However, you’ll wind up paying more interest, making it important to strike a balance.
Your monthly payment: If you can’t afford the monthly payment on a loan, you should not take out that loan. Similarly, you don’t want to overpay by choosing a long term with a low monthly loan payment. Aim for a monthly payment that you can confidently meet, but that doesn’t result in an unnecessarily long loan term.
Prepayment penalties: Some lenders charge a fee if you pay your loan back ahead of schedule. Usually, early payments are a good way to help you reduce interest payments, but some lenders charge these penalties to help recover some of their lost profits. If you plan on paying a loan back early, choose a lender without these penalties.

Other ways to get a $100,000 loan

It can be hard to find a lender that’s willing to let you borrow $100,000 without collateral—especially if you have don’t have a good credit history or a lot of other debt.

However, there are other ways to borrow $100,000 if you can’t find a personal loan for that amount. It’s much easier to get a loan if you opt for a secured loan, which means that you’ll have to provide some collateral.

Secured personal loans exist, but you can also opt for a home equity loan, HELOC, or another type of secured loan.

Home equity loan

A home equity loan lets you use the value of your home to secure a loan. You can often borrow more money at a much lower rate than most other loans charge, but you’ll be putting your home on the line if you get a home equity loan. If you can’t make your payments, your lender could foreclose on your home.

Home equity loans are popular because they come with some of the lowest rates, but you’ll also need to do a bit more paperwork, pay higher fees, and wait a little longer than you would for a personal loan.

HELOC

A home equity line of credit (HELOC), lets you turn your home into a constantly available source of cash. You can use a HELOC kind of like a credit card, taking cash when you need it and leaving it unused when you don’t need extra money.

HELOCs are useful because you don’t have to borrow all $100,000 at once. If you’re doing home improvements and you need $20,000 today, $50,000 next month, and $30,000 half a year from now, you can use a HELOC to take out the cash exactly when you need it, letting you save on interest.

While HELOCs have lower interest rates than other loans, the downside is that you’re still putting your home at risk, as with a home equity loan. They can also have annual fees and higher paperwork requirements than other types of loans.

Cash-out refinance

If you own your home, you can use a cash-out refinance to turn some of your equity into spendable cash. Unlike a HELOC or home equity loan, refinancing doesn’t give you a new loan to pay. Instead, you refinance your mortgage at a new rate and payment term, but for a larger amount than you currently owe on the home.

Effectively, you’re taking out a second mortgage to pay off your existing mortgage and pocketing the difference between what you borrowed and what you owed. This cash-out refinance calculator can show you how much you can get from a cash-out refi.

The upside of this is that you won’t add a monthly payment to your budget. The downside is that you’ll increase your mortgage balance and, unless you refinanced at a much lower rate, your monthly mortgage payment. Usually, it also adds to the amount of time it will take to pay off your home.

Ready to apply for a $100k loan? Check out our top-rated partner, LightStream.