Student Loans?

[ckostecki]

I am getting things together to get a mortgage on a 1st home. The mortgage lender told me I should not consolidate my students because it will look bad. Any truth to that? Also do student loans only report to CRA? They are between 6 & 8 yrs old so it would be nice to help my average account age a little?

[modernsurrender]

If you consolidate them, then they will all be put into one new lump sum loan as a brand new account (from what I understand) and it would hurt your average age to do so, which is probably why he is advising against it.

[Anonymous]

IMO- There are 3 reasons to consiolidate student loans-

1. Lower APR

2. Too many account to leep track of (and this is a maybe)

3. Reduce DTI for a mortgage (still gonna cost more $ over all unless you increase the payment)

I say don't do ANYTHING until after the mortgage-
Consolidating mine cost 15 points-

Then only do it if your interest rate decreases- everyone is different but if you have federal loans - the interest rate should go down July 1st. Dig in and find out.

---

ckostecki wrote:
I am getting things together to get a mortgage on a 1st home. The mortgage lender told me I should not consolidate my students because it will look bad. Any truth to that? Also do student loans only report to CRA? They are between 6 & 8 yrs old so it would be nice to help my average account age a little?

---

[ckostecki]

Speaking of APR, do you think they will be dropping with all the interest rates this June/July? even though I have a pretty good rate at about 5%

[Anonymous]

As a rule of thumb, I wouldn't do anything that's not clearly beneficial (like paying down CC balances, getting PFDs for your most recent collections and charge-offs) to your credit rating in the four months prior to getting a mortgage. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is sage advice, given that the response of FICO scoring to some actions can be a little, well, unpredictable...