@Anonymous wrote:Hey Guys - long time lurker here.
I have a question about all of these personal loan P2P lenders online, Upstart, LC, Prosper, Etc.
We purchased a home in 2014 for 200k. The home is worth around 380k now, but we can't get a home equity line of credit due to how FedLoan is reporting our loan repayment (we're on income based repayment paying 1k a month, however, it's being reported as 15K minimum on the credit report because each account has a different minimum repayment - we're currently in the reconsolidation process so that'll fix it maybe, but knowing fedloan... who knows).
Here's what we've done so far:
Went to chase - denied due to utilization (they use 1% of the total student loan balance as repayment - PHD student loans so we're near 300k) + CC repayments brings us over utilization, even if we used it to pay off SOME cards.
Went to our local CU - they won't agree to understand that we're only obligated, and have always, been paying less than 1k a month on the "15k minimum payment" as it's being reported.... They said they'll have the underwriters call, maybe it'll work out, it did for our mortgage when those underwriters called FedLoan for an explanation.
If that fails....
We absolutely need a personal loan - who cares about interest, we'll pay it down quickly. Here's the story. We purchased a home for 200k and put 40k into renovations, all on our CC's, plus another 45k cash. Thankfully we're still on the upside and have equity in the home! Our biggest problem is, all of our cards are maxed and, and while we're always able to make the minimum payments, we're hardly paying down any balances. Our total repayment is nearly 2k a month and it's mostly interest - and that's paying the minimum on each card, so there really is no way to pay down the bigger ones first.
That's where a personal loan comes in! We want to consolidate all of our CC's into a single account so we can refinance the home, get a home equity line of credit, and get rid of those horrible interest rates on the CC's. We'll later either pay down the personal loan or transfer it to the credit union. They will give us a loan at prime rates if we can get our utilization down!
If we can consolidate all of our CC's we'll be eligible for any refinance/home equity product or even a personal loan at a very low rate as we're only being denied because our utilization is too high, thus they can't do it becuase "The computer doesn't allow you to go over X% of your DTI".
My credit profile is as such:
120k income
Utilization at 95%
Lowest Score is Experian at 674, others are upper 600's
Not a single negative remark, late payment, derog or anything
I have been "approved" on each of the lending platforms (soft pull app completion), but I always get scared to pull the trigger as I've read so many reviews from people whom have been approved only to later be denied for similar reasons.
Remember our utilization is through the roof. We need a lender who's going to look at our repayment history, see that we're more than capable, we have good credit (would be 700+ if our utilization was down - dare I say 750+ lol), and we're never been late on a payment, and we can handle the loan.
Any thoughts/suggestions? I hear Upstart takes a more "personal" approach to lending, something about "looking at the people not the credit". Just hoping to find a lender who you think would approve us. Once we can turn the 2k minimum into $500ish a month, we'll be in much better shape!
Thanks and Happy New year!
Your best shot would probably be NFCU
@Anonymous wrote:
I'm currently working on getting in thru the NLUS San Diego. Hopefully it'll be wrapped up soon!
Do you have any experience with P2P lenders? Should we even really be considering it, if we have issues with getting into NFCU?
Thanks
IMHO, no. I have no experience with them, but in my view they are predatory lenders and will only make matters worse.
Also they are not highly regarded by FICO algorithms.