Taking out a loan for yourself is bad enough, but co-signing a loan is just plain stupid. Think about it, if the bank is asking for a co-signer its because they are not very confident that the applicant is going to be paying back the loan. So why would you then step up and say I'll pay back the loan if they don't, make me a co-signer please. Here is a list of things that people never think about when they cosign a loan for somebody. The loan now shows up on the cosigners credit. The entire credit history will now be showing up on the cosigners credit. That means that if you the cosigner had excellent credit your whole life, but the person you co-signed for just missed their payment and is now late, your credit is now ruined along with theirs. I hope you didn't need to do any financing or refinancing for yourself in the meantime. Now because this loan is now showing up on your credit, the payment due will now be calculated into your debt to income ratio, and you can tell your lender until your blue in the face that the payment is not yours, but you'll be wasting your time. If you make 3000 a month and you cosigned a loan for 300 dollars a month, that's now 10 percent of your debt to income ratio. In an industry where your DTI should not be over 36% that's one heck of a loan you should never have cosigned for. So yes it can interfere with your capability to get approved for a loan or get approved for as much as you might of needed. Last but least, never mix family and friends with money, when things go sour it can get pretty ugly and you can end up ruining some relationships that could have been great for the rest of your life. Now if you absolutely must co-sign a loan here is how I would do it. I, the co-signer would be the one who makes the payments to ensure that the loan was paid on time and I would be the one collecting the payment from the person who is getting the loan. Its a very simple way of preventing some of the worst situations that can arise and you should be willing to make the payments anyway after all thats what it means to cosign a loan. Your just turning things around and paying the loan upfront instead of paying after the applicant defaults and ruins every ones credit.