Alliant loan--help!

[Revelate]

Yes due date gets pushed way ahead and pretty OK's get posted even without a payment that month.  Alliant still reports the balance monthly.

Don't know 1 vs. 2 installment loans; might be a small increase having a second but given that there will be diminishing returns I suspect it would be minor.  Worth testing but unfortunately I can't with the impending mortgage likely going to skew everything on my report, especting to drop like 25-30 points =/.

[Imperfectfuture]

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@axlm wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the response. The savings secured on this website http://www.alliantcreditunion.org/loans/personal/savingssecured/ makes you pay 3.95% resulting in a total of $52 interest. Shouldn't I pay down the principal so interest payments are therefore reduced? 

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That's a great thing about the loan, you can pay early to reduce the interest. Just need to left something to pay little by little until the term. I'm in the process of getting one right now. Also your balance on the Savings account earn interest (.95% atm) so the loan interest could be even less.

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I am doing my own CU's secured installment loan for 4 years.  I would do a four year, then add another at the two or three year mark.  Of course, 52/5 years is slightly over 10 per year.  How much are we paying to get our scores.  I CAN tell you that my auto enhanced score generally runs over 700 since I got the loan, no auto history on report (think mortgage apps here as well).  I simply did it, as a cushion for opening new cards, and to get my score up higher vis a vis long term credit mix.  You can earn more interest by socking in same savings account, or buy some no fee etf's with dollar cost averaging.  The market not so hot right now.  

[axlm]

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@Imperfectfuture wrote:

I am doing my own CU's secured installment loan for 4 years.  I would do a four year, then add another at the two or three year mark.  Of course, 52/5 years is slightly over 10 per year.  How much are we paying to get our scores.  I CAN tell you that my auto enhanced score generally runs over 700 since I got the loan, no auto history on report (think mortgage apps here as well).  I simply did it, as a cushion for opening new cards, and to get my score up higher vis a vis long term credit mix.  You can earn more interest by socking in same savings account, or buy some no fee etf's with dollar cost averaging.  The market not so hot right now.  

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Is great to have another confirmation of this, as those are my main goals with the loan, especially auto scores for the near future (I have no auto loan history neither).

[Anonymous]

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@Imperfectfuture wrote:

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@axlm wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the response. The savings secured on this website http://www.alliantcreditunion.org/loans/personal/savingssecured/ makes you pay 3.95% resulting in a total of $52 interest. Shouldn't I pay down the principal so interest payments are therefore reduced? 

---

That's a great thing about the loan, you can pay early to reduce the interest. Just need to left something to pay little by little until the term. I'm in the process of getting one right now. Also your balance on the Savings account earn interest (.95% atm) so the loan interest could be even less.

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I am doing my own CU's secured installment loan for 4 years.  I would do a four year, then add another at the two or three year mark.  Of course, 52/5 years is slightly over 10 per year.  How much are we paying to get our scores.  I CAN tell you that my auto enhanced score generally runs over 700 since I got the loan, no auto history on report (think mortgage apps here as well).  I simply did it, as a cushion for opening new cards, and to get my score up higher vis a vis long term credit mix.  You can earn more interest by socking in same savings account, or buy some no fee etf's with dollar cost averaging.  The market not so hot right now.  

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Awesome! That's what I'll be doing in a couple of days. 4 year for 2.95%, $500. 

Looking to also boost my score for my app next year as well. 

[jamie123]

If you decide to get a second loan like I did, you might want to get it from SDFCU (State Department Federal Credit Union). It works very similar as getting the Alliant loan.

Join the Credit Union.

Deposit your $550

After your account is up and running in 7 to 10 days, apply for the loan.

This again is all accomplished without any HPs and now you have a relationship with another quality Credit Union. Not all credit unions will allow you to open a savings account and take out a share secured loan without HPs but Alliant and SDFCU do.

[Imperfectfuture]

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@jamie123 wrote:

If you decide to get a second loan like I did, you might want to get it from SDFCU (State Department Federal Credit Union). It works very similar as getting the Alliant loan.

Join the Credit Union.

Deposit your $550

After your account is up and running in 7 to 10 days, apply for the loan.

This again is all accomplished without any HPs and now you have a relationship with another quality Credit Union. Not all credit unions will allow you to open a savings account and take out a share secured loan without HPs but Alliant and SDFCU do.

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Actually, all the local ones here, that offer secured installment loans, do it without a hard pull.

[axlm]

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@Imperfectfuture wrote:

 Actually, all the local ones here, that offer secured installment loans, do it without a hard pull.

 Don't know where here is, but it must be nice. The local ones I checked here wanted the HP.

[Anonymous]

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@Imperfectfuture wrote:

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@jamie123 wrote:

If you decide to get a second loan like I did, you might want to get it from SDFCU (State Department Federal Credit Union). It works very similar as getting the Alliant loan.

Join the Credit Union.

Deposit your $550

After your account is up and running in 7 to 10 days, apply for the loan.

This again is all accomplished without any HPs and now you have a relationship with another quality Credit Union. Not all credit unions will allow you to open a savings account and take out a share secured loan without HPs but Alliant and SDFCU do.

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Actually, all the local ones here, that offer secured installment loans, do it without a hard pull.

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I did one at bank with no HP.

[jamie123]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Imperfectfuture wrote:

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@jamie123 wrote:

If you decide to get a second loan like I did, you might want to get it from SDFCU (State Department Federal Credit Union). It works very similar as getting the Alliant loan.

Join the Credit Union.

Deposit your $550

After your account is up and running in 7 to 10 days, apply for the loan.

This again is all accomplished without any HPs and now you have a relationship with another quality Credit Union. Not all credit unions will allow you to open a savings account and take out a share secured loan without HPs but Alliant and SDFCU do.

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Actually, all the local ones here, that offer secured installment loans, do it without a hard pull.

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I did one at bank with no HP.

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Most banks that I know of will demand a HP to open a new account. That's what I'm getting at with Alliant and SDFCU, you can OPEN a new savings account AND get a share secured loan ALL without a hard pull.

You really can't do that at most financial institutions nowadays. Because...You know...Terrorism!

[randyr]

I decided to do the Alliant Share Secured Loan because a couple of FICO reports have indicated that my score is being pulled down due to a lack of different types of credit (I have revolving credit cards, a revolving line, a mortgage and a HELOC, but no auto or installment loans).

I asked Alliant before applying and they claim that they do not do a credit report pull.  I will check this in a couple of days since I have to pull a new FICO anyway.

My understanding is that the right strategy is to not only get the loan (so you have an installment loan) but also to immediately pay it down to 10% of the original amount, so that it shows as mostly paid off.  Apparently, installment loans help with FICO, but installment loans that have a current balance that is much lower than the initial balance help a lot more, or so people say.

Alliant, according to people on the forums, lets you make a bunch of payments (say #1 through #40) qucikly, and then (presumably) only auto debits payment #41 when you get to 41 months from now (I"m doing the minimum, $500 for 48 months).

A side benefit of the paydown is that your $500 deposit gets released as you pay the loan, so I plan to transfer $400 back out.  Interest rate is 3.0%, but they pay you 1% on the savings, so the net cost is 2% interest for a year on $100.  After tax a bit higher since you pay taxes on the 1% interest, but total is maybe 4 or 5 Big Macs pey year, which could easily be outweighed by lower interest costs on other things if the FICO score changes by 10-20 points.

I should know how much my score changes when it hits in a couple of weeks, I'll post assuming it is obvious (other things are changing around the same time, so they might swamp the loan driven change).

I doubt if a second installment loan would make much difference, but who knows?