@Anonymous wrote:
@jsucool76 wrote:
@Jlu wrote:^ True, but I believe what he was saying is that credit =/= debt until it is utilized.
Credit is just a revolving loan...even if your cards aren't being utilized, you have the ability to max all of them out in the matter of a few hours if you really needed to. So if you have 15k in available credit, you have basically the ability to get yourself 15k in debt. Saying lenders don't use this information when making a decision is just misinformed.
Agreed
although this is partially true.
the bank i work for (im not an underwriter of course)
we count dti as the income subtracting monthly payments on a credit report.
if there is a 0 min payment on a credit card with a 25k limit, we still count it as a 0 payment because at the time its not obligated.
of course other banks may work differently.
@jsucool76 wrote:
@Jlu wrote:^ True, but I believe what he was saying is that credit =/= debt until it is utilized.
Credit is just a revolving loan...even if your cards aren't being utilized, you have the ability to max all of them out in the matter of a few hours if you really needed to. So if you have 15k in available credit, you have basically the ability to get yourself 15k in debt. Saying lenders don't use this information when making a decision is just misinformed.
Perhaps it's silly of me but I'm speaking purely semantics - hence the reason credit and debt are two different words 
@jsucool76 wrote:
@skigirl916 wrote:
@jsucool76 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
The 7% utilization is down to 0% now. My credit reports still say 7% as they have yet to update since the payoff.
I applied for another credit card because I was looking toward my future needs. I guess in hindsight it wasn't a great decision. :/Debt to income doesn't just mean balances...Every credit card you have is basically debt. So you technically (just by having these cards) are 15k in debt...plus your student loans. With an 11k income that doesn't look to hot.
You basically have too much available credit based on your income, I'd suggest gardening your cards until you get that job you're talking about.
Available credit/limits are not debt. Limits play no role in a creditor's evaluation of DTI.
So let's say you're a lender. You see someone with 11k income and 15k+ in credit card limits...are you going to give them another credit card? #CommonSense
I agree with your logic but it doesn't really hold since there seem to be many members here who have more in available credit than their yearly income...I see people with lower income than me with more credit than I do and sometimes I think I have too much credit for my income.
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@jsucool76 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
The 7% utilization is down to 0% now. My credit reports still say 7% as they have yet to update since the payoff.
I applied for another credit card because I was looking toward my future needs. I guess in hindsight it wasn't a great decision. :/Debt to income doesn't just mean balances...Every credit card you have is basically debt. So you technically (just by having these cards) are 15k in debt...plus your student loans. With an 11k income that doesn't look to hot.
You basically have too much available credit based on your income, I'd suggest gardening your cards until you get that job you're talking about.
This is just completely false. Debt To Income (DTI) always means what you owe measured as a percentage of your income. OP is not technically 15k in debt just by having 15k credit lines available. Now - do creditors look at total available credit as a decision factor? Yes. Amex often denies CLIs due to "total available credit in relation to reported income." However, that ratio is never called "DTI" by any creditor or bank. Did total available credit play a factor in OP's denial? It could have. But that's no reason to distort the facts of what DTI is.
