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We are trying to get my wifes credit score above 620 so we can qualify for a home loan.Mines 767 and hers is 606.Her's is low mostly due to no credit history.She has no credit cards,only thing positive on her account since she's been 18 is our auto loans we have that she is co borrower on. I've been looking around the net and keep coming across piggybacking. Im no entirely sure on what to do,it says to add her as a authorized user to my credit cards and it will improve her score and then I read another place and it says that you have to be a co borrower or add her as a joint applicant to get any good from it.I have 2 credit cards, visa with $3500cl and a walmart creditcard wtih $3800cl both cards have very low balances and both cards are about 5 years old and have never had a late payment.I already added her as a joint applicant to the visa.But was thinking of adding her onto the walmart card also.Question is,can I add her as a AU or do I have to add her as a co borrower/joint applicant to get any good from it?
Also after adding her to the accounts,when the credit card co's report for the first time to the 3 credit bearuea's will all my past payment history automatically show up on her report?
New here,not sure what "aaoa" is..Thanks
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You can add her as AU and it will help her score a lot. It will take a little while to kick in for her. I would suggest adding her as AU getting her a separate card and having her make ike one charge on it just to trigger it to report. it will take a little while like a month or two to report. Once she gets as bump in her credit score, she really should apply for some credit cards of her own. She doesn't have to use them at all, it will just just help.
If i were in your situation, which i actually am lol, I would consider putting any big loan for now under your name alone. This is cause you h ave much better credit than her and will qualify for better rates and thus save you both a lot of money. If it is a "political" issue between yo,u and her about her name being on it with you, I would have a talk with her an illustrate to her how much money you can save in the long term with the better interest rartes you can get with your credit alone. Good luck. And remember with mortgages and other debts, always be aware of the big picture and have the goal of owning your house outright. Don't be tricked into having to pay a lot more interest just to have a slightly lower monthly payment. Real wealth comes from increasing your net worth not just having more cash at the end of each month.
@dddewdrop wrote:You can add her as AU and it will help her score a lot. It will take a little while to kick in for her. I would suggest adding her as AU getting her a separate card and having her make ike one charge on it just to trigger it to report. it will take a little while like a month or two to report. Once she gets as bump in her credit score, she really should apply for some credit cards of her own. She doesn't have to use them at all, it will just just help.
If i were in your situation, which i actually am lol, I would consider putting any big loan for now under your name alone. This is cause you h ave much better credit than her and will qualify for better rates and thus save you both a lot of money. If it is a "political" issue between yo,u and her about her name being on it with you, I would have a talk with her an illustrate to her how much money you can save in the long term with the better interest rartes you can get with your credit alone. Good luck. And remember with mortgages and other debts, always be aware of the big picture and have the goal of owning your house outright. Don't be tricked into having to pay a lot more interest just to have a slightly lower monthly payment. Real wealth comes from increasing your net worth not just having more cash at the end of each month.
This is not always the case, I went joint with my husband on a large auto loan to help his scores, in reality they pulled both our credit reports but based the rate off of mine since I was primary on the application. Not every lender will ding your rate due to the co-borrowers score and it can be a great way to build positive history for a spouse.
In the OPs situation, if they need the wife's income to qualify then he is right to piggyback her to get her scores up... but if they dont' need her income, then he could apply on his own for the house, and then just add her to the title at closing, unless there is a political thing with making her responsible for the house debt too
Yeah,thats the kicker,we need her income to qualify for the house we want.I don' t make quite enough to qualify on my own. Will adding her as a joint account holder on my Visa give her credit a bump? And should I go ahead and add her as a AU on my Walmart card?
@CHBH wrote:Yeah,thats the kicker,we need her income to qualify for the house we want.I don' t make quite enough to qualify on my own. Will adding her as a joint account holder on my Visa give her credit a bump? And should I go ahead and add her as a AU on my Walmart card?
Yes to both! Add her on there and wait til they report.. I think she'll get a pretty decent boost from being added.
Yes. Do both and i would consider in 6 months if I were her getting her own card to consolidate the gains from being AUed.I completely agree that if you can get approved for the loan with the two of you, that would really help her credit.
I added her as a joint applicant on my Visa 2 weeks ago.I'll go ahead and add her as a AU to the walmart card later this evening when she gets home.The loan officer wants to re check her credit tomorrow.She seems to think that just by adding her on the visa should be enough to get it up.Im a little skepticale myself,especially in such a short time frame.