Balance Transfer - Post Mortgage Closing question

[Anonymous]

I started reading these boards in June after I'd applied for my first mortgage.  Based on what I read, I purposefully didn't seek any new credit besides the mortgage and now I've closed on the house (last week).

Long story short, I have a $12K balance on a Amex Blue card and the interest rate has steadily climbed from 9.99% to 12.99% and will go to 15.24% October 1st.  

I'd like to transfer this balance to another card.  My thought is to apply to Addison & one other bank/credit union and try to do a balance transfer of $6,000 to each.  Anything wrong with this or that I should avoid?  I have a perfect payment history and good credit but I want to pay this balance off and it's of course taking forever as the interest rate rises.

And should I apply for this new credit before the mortgage posts to my credit file and my scores drop? 

TU 737 6/24/09 and 727 9/14/09

EQ 729 6/24/09 and 729 9/14/09

EX 781 6/24/09 (FICO from LO)

[haulingthescoreup]

If you can app before the mortgage shows up, that might help. I doubt that your scores will tank, but they will probably drop, at least briefly.

What are your FICO's, the ones that your mortgage lender pulled? (Not the scores from the TU or EX site, or from CreditSecure, other monitoring services, etc etc.)

Any reason to want to get two cards and split the balance, as opposed to putting it all on one card?

[Anonymous]

The Fico scores from 6/24 are the ones my lender pulled for my mortgage app (and were the same when I pulled from MyFico at the time).  

The 9/14 scores are the ones I pulled from MyFico.com today.

I haven't applied for a card in so long and I know credit is tighter these days.  I didn't know if I'd get a credit line that would cover the $12K.  So I thought it might be easier to get approved with a $6k transfer at one card and $6k on a 2nd card but didn't know if my reasoning was faulty. 

TU 737 6/24/09 and 727 9/14/09

EQ 729 6/24/09 and 729 9/14/09

EX 781 6/24/09 (FICO from LO)

[haulingthescoreup]

Well, that's what I get for just reading your quoted post, and not seeing your siggy! Congrats on the very nice scores.

I'd investigate US Bank. There's a separate thread going on here, and they seem to be in a lending mood, complete with 0% offers.

I don't know where you are in Tennessee --I'm in Knoxville --but I know that there are US Bank branches in, of all places, Kingston, Jeff City, and White Pine. If you're curious, you can try this bank finder link: US Bank locations

It's tough searching for us bank here on the forums, because the search function won't take quotes, and us and bank don't get you very far. But they are a good conservative bank that weathered the economic meltdown very nicely. They remind me a lot of credit unions in that manner.