Joined NFCU today, what do I do now?

[LCD328]

I have two questions. First question, Joined NFCU today online, but I'm a little concerned with the posts about being approved and then finding out additional documents are needed for approval. I've already gotten the welcome email and have signed into the account, so am I approved or can I expect more verification request for approval?

Second question, when should I apply for any products they offer? I'm not looking for anymore credit cards, but I do want to consolidate the ones I have. I have high utilization on them and want to consolidate to a personal loan and lock away the cards, keeping them open for credit score. I have a yearly salary over 60,000, federal DOD employee for over 16 years. I'm looking at 15,000 for the loan. My scores across the board are mid 600's. One 30 day late payment due to fall off Sept. 2017, one medical collection for 95 dollars, waiting for response from collection agency about pay for delete.. I have accounts with local CU, but I've heard  NFCU is more likely to approve than my CU.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

[Appleman]

Hello,

Since NFCU does a hard pull for each product it is wise to only apply for what you need. I would think waiting until September and letting the 30 day late fall off would be a good choice. It would also give you time to work on the medical collection (how old is the medical collection?).

You should check out Prosper, Lending Club and SoFi.com. Each of these lenders will do personal loans and you can get pre-approval with only a soft pull. Do that now and again in a couple of months when the 30 day falls off the report. This will just give you a point of reference for what might be avilable for you. If you do go through with one of the listed lenders it is often a hard pull for final approval.

If you do end up getting a personal loan through NFCU, I would recommend that you do get one of their credit cards once all of your other cards are paid off. They seem to be generous in growing the credit lines.

Have you looked into PenFed. Currently they are my favorite and it is only one Equifax pull to apply for multiple products. I would wait on them and apply after the 30 day late falls off.

Good luck

[Anonymous]

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@LCD328 wrote:

I have two questions. First question, Joined NFCU today online, but I'm a little concerned with the posts about being approved and then finding out additional documents are needed for approval. I've already gotten the welcome email and have signed into the account, so am I approved or can I expect more verification request for approval?

Second question, when should I apply for any products they offer? I'm not looking for anymore credit cards, but I do want to consolidate the ones I have. I have high utilization on them and want to consolidate to a personal loan and lock away the cards, keeping them open for credit score. I have a yearly salary over 60,000, federal DOD employee for over 16 years. I'm looking at 15,000 for the loan. My scores across the board are mid 600's. One 30 day late payment due to fall off Sept. 2017, one medical collection for 95 dollars, waiting for response from collection agency about pay for delete.. I have accounts with local CU, but I've heard  NFCU is more likely to approve than my CU.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

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Congrats on joining NFCU-they are bar far my favourite credit union (I belong to four including PenFed). I have not seen many recent posts about people getting into NFCU only to have their accounts frozenor closed. I do recall posts about that in the past but that was usually for people that joined through housemates or the cousin of a step-sister sort of thing. If you joined legitimately through your own military service or a close family member's military service you should be fine. If you do get a request for more information (usually from the BSA department) just provide them with what they need. 

As the poster above me said, NFCU likes to hard pull for every product that they offer (which really should be expected, PenFed just spoils people) so if you do not need anything at the moment, you can just hang tight with your membership savings. NFCU has great personal loan rates; however, I have no experience with that as of yet. I can tell you that NFCU is very generous with the credit card business but that doesn't always translate into loan products so I will have others answer that. Otherwise, this fall they are introducing a new American Express card so you could wait for that. NFCU also has a really low rate Platinum card but with your scores I cannot guarantee that you would be approved for the lowest rate (6.74%).

The beauty of a credit union is that once you are a member, you are a member for life so if you do not need or want any credit products from them now, all you have to do is maintain your membership and it will be ready for you when you want to apply.