I'm moving from a part of the country with great public transport to a part of the country with virutally none for, thankfully, a great new job. I'm going to need to purchase a new car within 1-2 months of moving. Right now, I'm largely focused on either a Honda Civic or Hyundia Elantra. I'll be shopping in early October, so if 2018 models are hitting the lots, there should be decent deals on 2017 models.
Auto loan history:
- I have 2 prior auto-loans fully paid off, paid on time: one from Triad Finance (Honda Civic, paid off: 2005) and one from Toyota Finance (Toyota Camry paid off: 2009) -- neither of these are listed on credit reports at this point, but would they be "visible" to Honda or Hyundai finance?
- Unfortunately, I have a reposession on my record from Fall 2012 for a Toyota Camry Hybrid, financed via Toyota Financial. It's listed as a "charge-off". The original (30 day) deliquency date was in August 2012. Up until that point, I'd been making payments successfully from June 2009 through August 2012. 6 months of unemployment after a layoff left me choosing between rent and the car payment and rent won out.
Credit scores:
- Currently, all three are hovering in the 670 to high 680s.
- I (optimistically?) hope that they will be in the low 700s by the time I apply
Credit Ratio:
- Currently, high 30%s
- By the time I apply for an auto-loan, by taking the steps listed below, I should be down to low 20%s.
Installment Loans:
- I do not currently have any installment loans.
Negative Items:
- Item #1: A $2k balance from a payday loan (hey, I was desperate after getting laid off). It was reported by a junk debt buyer, not the original payday lender. I disputed it to the two agencies that had listed, Transunion deleted it after their 30 day investigation, but Experian declined to do so.
- Item #2: A $100 balance from TimeWarner, now reported by a junk debt owner. TimeWarner charged me for an extra month of service when I moved. I disputed it, but the dispute was denied.
- Note: the repo is not listed under the "negative items" section, but just as its own account. I think this may be due to the fact that after Toyota reposessed the car, they sold it at auction and then sent me a check for ~$4,000 for the difference (in other words, they sold it for $4k more than the balance of my loan + late fees). Then, several months later they sent me a bill for $1,500 saying that there were some repairs required on the car to sell it and so I had to pay that amount. This was when I as laid off/unemployed, so I ignored this -- especially since they'd essentially cleared me with the $4k check. So, it's this $1.5k unpaid amount which they reported to the bureaus.
Number of present accounts (all credit cards or store credit):
- 7 -- all with on-time payments and no overages
Steps I'm taking, or will be taking shortly, to get scores up include:
- Reducing debt-to-credit ratio by paying down CC balances (I've also recently been approved for three new CCs which which will help with this ratio)
- Paying off $100 item #2 negative item and asking debt owner to delete from all three reports
- Attemping to negotiate for removal of Item #1 -- but only if they agree to a deletion as well
- Following the instructions on here to establish a modest $500 savings account and installment loan from a credit union in order to establish a new installment loan payment history
Income (from new job starting in August):
- $130,000/yr.
- I will have 2 months of employment history/paychecks by the time I apply for the loan
- In case you're wondering, this is a significant jump up in compensation for me; my prior financial issues happened when I was earning considerably less
Down payment:
- I have a ton of upfront relocation costs, but will be aiming to put down between $2-5k
Loan amount:
- Depending upon deals, car trims etc. I''ll be looking to finance somewhere between $20-25k/
