First time buyer- Will I get approved?

[notfancy]

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@SeanDylan wrote:

I was doing some research to figure out if any of my local CU's offer anything close to what DCU offers. The best I found was Northrop Grumman Federal CU. With the direct deposit option, it gets down to 1.44%, without direct deposit it's 1.69%, still pretty good. Does anyone know anything about them? I've heard using their website is a pain to make payments and what not. How is DCU?

The other local CU's all hover around 1.7% APR.

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DCU is basically 1.74 with out DD and 1.24 with for up to 66 months.. Making payments on their website is impossible. They don't have an option for it unless you have direct deposit, so you have to mail in your payments, call in your payments, or use bill pay through your normal financial institution. Beyond that however, I found their customer service to be amazing on the phone, and the process was painless when I got my loan AND my credit card through them. My APR ended up being 2.24% because I opted for a loan over 72 months to make sure the payments were firmly where I was comfortable. (yes, I can and will pay more / pay ahead but I wanted a specific payment amount. I have to add this comment for those that watch over me to make sure I'm always where I want to be credit wise lol)

[Remember0]

Thanks for the compliment, notfancy!

[SeanDylan]

Thanks for all the input so far, I really do appreciate it! You've all given me great confidence going forward. I did have a few additional questions though.

I've done some research on DCU, it looks like they're not as good as some people make them out to be. It seems as though they get you through the approval process very quickly and easily but once you're approved, it all goes down hill. They never send you any type of bill through the mail to remind you, paying is supposedly a pain, and a few other things. Now I'm somewhat hesitant on going through DCU especially because the closest one to me is around 3,000 miles away. If any problems arise, it's sometimes very tough to figure everything out over the phone and that's another negative that I've heard. When it comes to resolving a problem and you're not local with DCU, it's a pain in the butt. I would not be looking forward to something like that.

The current credit union that I am with, although may be conservative, their lowest APR currently is 2.1%. Last time I was going through this process but was declined approval by them, I think I heard them say if you finance through them they'll give you $500 off. Then there is another CU about 20 minutes from where I'm living called Northrop Grumman. Their lowest APR for 60 months is 1.69%. With 20,000 financed, I would end up paying a total of $20,870 ($870 in interest) for a monthly payment amount of $347.85. Now if my local credit union that I am currently with (Kinecta) does indeed off that $500 incentive, even with the 2.1% interest, the total amount I would pay is $20,558 ($1058 in interest) for a monthly payment of $342.65.

Even though I'd end up paying $188 more in interest, overall I'd be paying $312 less. I think it would be worth it. Then again, if I financed through DCU and financed $20,000 and I didn't have any problems at all, my total payment would end up being $20,636 ($636 in interest) for a monthly payment amount of $343.45. I didn't do the numbers until now and I am glad I did. So even with that 1.24% APR and DCU being located far far away, if my local CU gives me that $500 I think I just realized I should go with them.

Thoughts?!

[notfancy]

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@SeanDylan wrote:

Thanks for all the input so far, I really do appreciate it! You've all given me great confidence going forward. I did have a few additional questions though.

I've done some research on DCU, it looks like they're not as good as some people make them out to be. It seems as though they get you through the approval process very quickly and easily but once you're approved, it all goes down hill. They never send you any type of bill through the mail to remind you, paying is supposedly a pain, and a few other things. Now I'm somewhat hesitant on going through DCU especially because the closest one to me is around 3,000 miles away. If any problems arise, it's sometimes very tough to figure everything out over the phone and that's another negative that I've heard. When it comes to resolving a problem and you're not local with DCU, it's a pain in the butt. I would not be looking forward to something like that.

The current credit union that I am with, although may be conservative, their lowest APR currently is 2.1%. Last time I was going through this process but was declined approval by them, I think I heard them say if you finance through them they'll give you $500 off. Then there is another CU about 20 minutes from where I'm living called Northrop Grumman. Their lowest APR for 60 months is 1.69%. With 20,000 financed, I would end up paying a total of $20,870 ($870 in interest) for a monthly payment amount of $347.85. Now if my local credit union that I am currently with (Kinecta) does indeed off that $500 incentive, even with the 2.1% interest, the total amount I would pay is $20,558 ($1058 in interest) for a monthly payment of $342.65.

Even though I'd end up paying $188 more in interest, overall I'd be paying $312 less. I think it would be worth it. Then again, if I financed through DCU and financed $20,000 and I didn't have any problems at all, my total payment would end up being $20,636 ($636 in interest) for a monthly payment amount of $343.45. I didn't do the numbers until now and I am glad I did. So even with that 1.24% APR and DCU being located far far away, if my local CU gives me that $500 I think I just realized I should go with them.

Thoughts?!

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Sounds like you worked out the situation you can be happiest with! Nothing wrong with that at all.

I can't speak for what choices you should or could make, but to answer your questions about DCU- I haven't had any troubles, so I don't know how they would handle them. Paying online is indeed a pain. I don't know if I had the option to have them mail me anything, but I assume I did and selected paperless billing, because that is what I prefer. They did send me a payment book, but I use my home bank's bill pay service.

I'm told they are working on their website, but currently you can not pay your bill online through their website- you would have to mail it, pay it through your branch's bill pay or open a direct deposit account there of some kind. Your other option is in the next paragraph.

When I spoke to a rep from there, she spent an hour on the phone with me discussing credit, financing and a host of other things. I thought she was incredibly patient, kind and knowlegeable. That being said, she told me that they are part of a cooperation between credit unions. What that means is, even though there is no DCU near me, I can go to a local credit union (and she looked it up online to tell me exactly which one, and told me the location and how many miles it is from my house) and told me that if I ever have to pay on my account and can't get it done through my online bill pay, I can take a payment to that branch and it will get credited to my account.

When I applied, I had to send them proof of income, and a few other things, which I did via fax. They prefer email, but I didn't have a scanner. After that was done, I was approved and opted to have them fed ex me the check to pay for my auto. (I had to pay for the FedEx shipping.) I had the funding for my loan basically two days after I applied, and sent in my proof of income. I also had to in that time go back and get my loan amount increased slightly, and that wasn't a problem at all.