@DigitalArk wrote:
What do we look for?
- Creditor institution name first
- Limit / installment size second.
- Tradeline type third.
- Secured vs Unsecured likely fourth.
My rebuilders were Cit and WF secured cards. They have unsecured and so there is almost* no trace of any rebuilder activity or uglier early history..
I have no idea who, if any, creditors look for rebuilder history.
*I say almost because a creditor with enough analytics could calculate the mortgage interest rate I had on a mortgage taken out in '09 and make a pretty good estimate that my FICOs at the time were in the mid 600's. Had only the two cards extant at the time reported, my FICOs would have been around 720 to 730. They could reasonably infer I had baddies reporting at the time.
But it would take analytics to figure that out and is likely beyond the ability of a manual reviewer.
I doubt it really matters much though. One's current credit status is what's important.
@SunriseEarth wrote:
@DigitalArk wrote:
Maybe Cap1 and GERMB as well?Often but not always. Cap 1 does have some CCs that require excellent credit (and there's certainly people here with 5-digit limits on their cards). And while GE cards are easier to get than many store cards, not everyone with store cards is necessarily a rebuilder.
I'd say ones like First Premier and Merrick are rebuilders.
+1.
I tend to lump store cards in with rebuilders, but that's only because most of their underwriting criteria is down at that level. I think it's fair to state that any institution the underwriter hasn't heard of, may be a rebuilder or otherwise "suboptimal" tradeline from a bureaucrat perspective.
As someone mentioned FICO doesn't care, at all; and for the most part I don't think many lending institutions care either, to give a personal example, my own report had/has:
BOFA secured (unsecured now)
C1 nee Orchard $400
DCU Secured card
Cashcall installment loan
Any underwriter looking at that would see 4 rebuilding tradelines, and even today looking at the establishment date on my BOFA account, a knowledgable underwriter could likely assume that it started as a secured card; that all said, everyone knows people have to start somewhere, and underwriting will judge more on what was done with the tradelines since they established than what they are. Amex has approved me instantly for just about everything I asked for (half hour delay on the Zync app, close enough for government work) and Chase didn't hassle me about any of them when I went through a pretty simple recon process for the admittedly fairly low bar of the current Freedom underwriting. I suspect looking around at anecdotal reports by January I could obtain a CSP too without much trouble.
I think it's fair to state that even the premier lenders don't emphasize which cards you've had in the past: they're worried about future profitability, and will make the benchmark decision at that instant in time. Restating: everyone has to start somewhere, and other than students and a few exceptional cases, we all start at the bottom of the food chain from a credit card and loan perspective.