Nothing really new to report here as Citi still hasn't reported to the CRA's of my transfer, even tho Chase reported an $850 charge the day it posted to catch me off guard for paying in full before it reported. Dinged the scores a bit.
This is the way my account looks as of this morning and they still haven't attached the BT fee. Most likely will all happen on the next closing date of the 9th
And not to drift off to a real estate thread but the purpose of this BT was to give me some cash to go after another piece of rental property. I'm happy to say it worked out and I believe both party's got what they wanted.
A divorced lady with two children got $7,000 cash to pack up and move back to her home state of Georgia and I have a 6 month option to buy her home. The property is now vacant and I'll have my small crew go thru the place next week, rip up some carpet, patch some holes in the walls, stucco the ceilings and give the place a fresh coat of paint. We'll be working off and on for the next couple of months.
The deal. From what I can tell, when I'm done with it the 3Bedroom ranch w/2car garage on a 2.5 acre lot will appraise around $110k
She was asking $75k for it and I told her I would give her that much on my terms, $7k now and another $68k at the end of September
At that time, I will take out an $90k or so mortgage from the bank, pay what's left of her mortgage and send her the rest of what I owe her. Then I'll pay off Citi and hopefully have some left over for the 'Bank of Brad'
Then I will nicely ask Citi for a CLI and start looking for another investment.
All the Best
@Anonymous wrote:Hi All,
Hope things are well.
Monday morning, the 16th of March I deposited a Balance Transfer check from my CDP into my checking account. I wrote the check for $7,200.00 and it posted yesterday to both my bank and when I log in to Citi.
I plan on using the funds to negotiate the purchase of another piece of rental property over the next couple of weeks. There are a couple I'm looking at.
Anyways, I plan on paying this '5% loan' off by September. The transaction looks like this.
CL - $8,600.00
BT - $7,200.00
BT fee - 360.00 bringing the utilization to around 87% for this one card and I'm currently at less than 1% total utilization on the rest of my cards. The 0% interest is good until the end of May, 2016
Earlier this month, Suntrust(LightStream) started reporting to all three agencies a car loan I took out in September of '14 so that is already figured into all of my scores as I lost about 15 points across the board.
I plan on staying in the garden as outlined in my sig but I thought some folks might be interested to see what this kind of UT will do to scores without anything else really changing. Citi hasn't reported this to any of the agencies yet but when it does I'm the bells and whistles will start going off.
I believe that, for me anyways, that Citi has carved out a niche with this card that just keeps on giving. Cash when I want it with no additional HP's or tradelines to worry about. A drop in my scores don't concern me as I won't be applying for anything new for a while and as I pay it back over the next few months my scores will come back even stronger I would think.
Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read and I'll keep everyone posted on how things progress.
Current MyFico's 03/19/15
EQ - 809 TU - 734 EX - 752
Current VantageScore 3.0
EQ=793 TU=743 EX=761
Thank you for sharing your story. Good luck with your business adventures!!!
Got a couple of alerts from MyFico overnight. My EQ score got dinged 41pts and my EX dropped 17 pts due to the 87% utilization on this card, but we were expecting that. 
As a reminder, these were my scores on 03/19/15 when I started this transfer
EQ - 809 TU - 734 EX - 752
Current VantageScore 3.0
EQ=793 TU=743 EX=761
Current scores in sig.
Here's the way they set the 'minimum payment' up. Remember, my 0% interest on this BT ends May of 2016 and if I only make the minimum payment I will definately run past that. I will most likely put 1k towards it for the first payment.
As it worked out with closing dates and such, it will be right at 7weeks from the time I deposited the check into my bank to the time that I will have to make the first payment, nice.
I am currently at 8% UT reported on my Amex and the rest of my cards are clear.
All the Best
Just a monthly update on the CDP balance transfer.
I made the first $1,000 payment on the 4th of May dropping my balance accordingly and also dropping the minimun payment due by $15. I plan on making another payment of 1k by the due date shown below. The utilization for the other cards are hovering at 3%.
The only score not showing the up to date total on the CDP is my Experian MyFico for some reason, everything else including the VantageScores are current.
Thursday I received a 'pop-up' pre approval for the Citi DC for 14k and 14.99apr and kindly closed the window. No Apps 'till December
Things are going well with the new property that we are buying along with a very busy Spring in my handyman business.
Hope all is well with your credit journey...
Starting scores for reference.
MyFico's 03/19/15
EQ - 809 TU - 734 EX - 752
VantageScore 3.0
EQ=793 TU=743 EX=761
@Anonymous wrote:Your scores dropped that much from the ultil on that card?! Crazy, I did the same with $4,300 check I threw into my account to pay off a loan with interest. 4300/5400 = 80% util on that card, my score dropped maybe three points on CK after citi reported the balance, and this is out of $17k overall available credit.
What are your scores from MyFICO, and the change from the increased utilization?
@Anonymous wrote:Your scores dropped that much from the ultil on that card?! Crazy, I did the same with $4,300 check I threw into my account to pay off a loan with interest. 4300/5400 = 80% util on that card, my score dropped maybe three points on CK after citi reported the balance, and this is out of $17k overall available credit.
Apples to Apples? You did this with a CDP I take it, but like NRB asked, did you have the MyFico Scores when you went thru this? and was it before CK went to VantageScore 3.0 and included Equifax? I ask because you only mention one score dropping three points, which even at that I find a tad hard to believe for 80% utilization on any card for any reason unless you're maybe running with all three scores up around the 850 mark.
Anyways, thanks for reading and I'm sure my scores will be back up, maybe even a tad higher when I take a look at exiting the garden in December.