My husband and I are aiming for a 700 plus score within the next few months (his parents put most of his debt on 1.9 percent Discover card of theirs). I assume because his credit is about 633 now, it should get him up to 700 or so. He has great credit other than his former high utilization and about a 14 year history.
All my debt will be gone with the sale of our home. (we had people come look for the second time today...eeks..hope it sells soon!) My scores are in low 630s right now. (I have a discharged bankruptcy in 2003). Most of my stuff - about 6 accounts- are scheduled to start dropping from my report beginning 11/08 to 6/09. Other than that, I have no lates. My credit history is about 16 years.
Once we have all this done, we are going to get on each others cards as JOINT owners - so that will increase the available credit limit on paper.
Here's our dilemna. We would like to pay his parents back and there are a couple of choices. I want to be smart for once.
1. Do we buy a home with equity in it and just get a HELOC to pay them back (it will be roughly 36k) and the interest rate - not sure? 6.5-9 percent?
2. Do we try to get a few 0 percent credit cards with low aprs after that and put the debt on 1-2 high limit cards?
3. Or do we aim for the AMEX blue card with 5 percent cash back with a 36k balance transfer? Does Amex just go by credit scores or income or both?
We make about 120k a year between us.
Any suggestions?