Auto Refi Question

[Anonymous]

After 2 bad car decisions in a row, I am trying to decide how to best get from upside down.  I have a 2015 Kia Optima, owe around $23k, with 58 payments left. Since buying the car I have had pretty decent improvement in my scores. I think I could probably get a lower rate now based on all the great info in this forum. I realize the loan to value ratio value can only be 100% to 120% at best.  Where is the best place to find the car value? KBB? Or NADA? What value is the refi based on trade-in? Retail?  Also is it better to pay the potential difference in value at the time of refi or pay a big chunk of it towards the current principal? Is there a difference or is it a wash?

Thavks in advance!

[Anonymous]

1. As long as you know you made mistakes and they won't happen again, who cares that they happen, for a second I thought you were gonna say something about trading more equity in, haha.
2. D.w about the value, you don't decide that, the CU/lender does, and they'll use whatever kbb/nada/edmunds they feel like. Dcu uses NADA, period. Retail/private party? I really don't know unfortunately. Good question.
3. The pay off diff doesn't matter realistically for refi purposes. Though if you know your putting 2k or something towards it you may as well do it now since your being charged interest on the higher amount, we're talking a few dollars here but 8% on 23k is higher than 8% on 21k.
4. Most cars are upside down for a while unless you put a big deposit down, cars are bad investments. I'm assuming you rolled negative equity into it. Negative equity only ever matters if you plan on reselling it. If you plan on keeping it who cares if your upside down, as long as your happy with it.
5. With 4 being said, no one likes paying high interest, you didn't say your rate, but check DCU, they use Nada, do up to 120%. Use fico5. With direct deposit a 675 fico5 gets you 2.74. 700 is 2.24.

[Anonymous]

Kuma,

Thank you for the info and you are correct I am over lamenting my past mistakes and moving on to make things better!  Really in the last 2 years I have just been in a state of trying to not make things worse.  Until I found myFICO forums I didn't realize I could actually be proactive about improving my scores.  In the last 2 weeks I have really started to get a plan together to get my scores up, get my debt down and be in better place overall.  Probably the most impactful thing I have done is educate myself as much as possible on my own situation.  I have then been able to take some strategies talked about here to take some action.  

Specifically in the instance above with my auto loan.  My current rate is 11.99% and yes there was negativity equity rolled into this loan.  At the time, I was just thrilled I was getting a new car....now I know I am that person the finace dept loves to see coming!  They think they are doing me a favor and I kind of thought so too.  NOT ANYMORE!

I will not be in that situataion again.  myFICO forums is addictive and empowering all at the same time LOL.  Looking at my finance papers my EQ score was 561 but it doesn't say what specfic model.  If it was an Eq5 my current is 602.  I am going to see where scores go over the next couple of months, I am waiting on some CC balances to report 0, and 2 new CapOne cards to report as well.  Using the score simulator these 2 things should boost some scores.  

I will continue to push forward! Thanks!

2/16/16EQ= 637 TU= 630 EX=648

[Anonymous]

**UPDATE**  I called DCU today to see how the determine the value.  They use NADA Clean Retail Value.  They can refinance up to 120% depending on score.  

[Anonymous]

Yep. When your balances are all reported down I'd pull your equifax scores and find out what your at. Anything they offer is better than your current rate. If your equifax is in solid shape. New cards reporting likely won't help your score unfortunately unless your uti is out of control because your aaoa is going to take a slight dip. Utilization is gonna be very helpful though. What was your uti/ per card and overall?

[Anonymous]

Uti for revolving accounts when I signed up for myFico was almost 100% that's only 3 cards with credit lines totaling $2200.
Credit One was $272/300- 0 balance now that hasn't reported
Merrick- $1450/1500- is paid down to $750- this updated on Eq yesterday and raised it 27points
Lane Bryant $301/400- will be paying it off next month
Approved Tuesday for the C1 Quicksilver One and the C1 Platinum for $3000 each.
I might look into moving the Merrick balance over to one of the C1 cards. Plan on paying that balance down even more next month.
My main derog is a charge off from a C1 card that I finished paying off in January (pretty remarkable they gave me the new cards, they must be gracious or have no cross referencing!) When they charged off the account they filed a judgment- I immediately set up a payment plan and paid everything I owed them, but it took 24months. So the C1 has been reporting 30 days late the whole time, for whatever reason the judgment has never been reported to the CRAs, the CA (a law office) also never reported. I talked to C1 last week they have the status as paid in full in their system now so I don't know what the reporting will be? I did send 3 GW letters to C1 asking to have the CO removed- it's a long shot but thought I would try. We have some mortgage lates and CC lates- all of those are almost 2 years old as well- so even though they won't go away for another 5 years or so, the last 2 years have been pretty good payment history. Taking cues from here I gather that a little bit of work and just plain old time will be my best course of action.

We are relocating to a different city in May/June so we are kind of scrambling on getting some things in order. We will be selling our current house, but won't be thinking about buying for at least 2 yrs, I already have a job but we are unsure of what my husband will be doing.
SO, I think that is most of my story! Sorry for the long posts.

[Anonymous]

Long posts help everyone give you better advice. Your not in a horrible position assuming you can pay things down. Play a finance game and try to put your usage all into one cars(or atleast appear that way) before apping. Get one card as low % util as possible(preferably under 10%) and you'll probably be all set.any card above 30% util dings you in addition tinpot overall uti being high.