Authorized user enough to build credit?

Anonymous · ‎05-09-2015

Hello wonderful forum. I'm still new to the credit rebuilding and I'm curious if anyone has had any experience with authorized users.

My partner and I are rebuilding our credit so we can secure a mortgage (at some point). One of his biggest issues is lack of credit, rather than bad credit (The baddies are more me).

This month, we added him as an authorized user to both of my credit cards (in good statnding, never late) and our 2 store cards (in good standing, never late).

Is this enough to help him start building credit or does being an authorized user not help significantly?

We're wondering because we don't just want to start applying for credit cards and he knows he'll probably have to do a secure credit card to start with. We are just wondering if it's necessary for him to do that or does the authorized user on all of the above allow him to establish credit?

Thoughts?

Anonymous · ‎05-09-2015

He needs his own cards. Being an AU may "help" him get started, but he needs his own nice thick credit file.

Anonymous · ‎05-09-2015

Thank you! We'll go ahead and apply for one of the secured cards next week. I'm hoping with adding him to mine, and getting the utilization down before we did, he may get a bit of a jump next month in score. *Maybe* he'll be approved for an unsecured...

One thing the broker told us was that they'd want to see a credit line open for 9-12 months. This may be too specific a question and we may need to call the broker, but do you konw if his age of credit will go by MY credit card being opened date (2 years ago) OR when we added him as an AU?

Again, if it's too specific a situation, I'll reach out to the broker again. Ugh, it's hard to figure it all out!

Anonymous · ‎05-09-2015

Have him go to the Cap One prequal site. He may be able to get an usecured card there. I got my first Cap One card about six months before the beginning scores listed in my sig. If he has decent income Cap One may work with him like they did with me.

Anonymous · ‎05-09-2015

Good plan - we'll go for it and try that.

Looking at your score jumps for the time frame you stated is amazing! I'm going to read all of your posts now haha

Thanks for the tips!

Anonymous · ‎05-12-2015

Hey RisingScores, thanks again for the info. On the 9th, I went ahead and looked at the prequal site to see what he would get. His first offer was for a secured card only.

Today, I got a notice, from one of the credit monitoring sites, that there were changes on his scores. It looks like adding him as an authorized user did make improvements in his score. That one change brought him from a 560 to a 621.

We went to the prequal site again today (trying to avoid hard pulles) and tried again. Today he qualified for an unsecured card with them!! QuickSilverOne.

Happy dance!

Thanks again! That really helped us be able to check whether it was worth the hard pull.

Anonymous · ‎05-12-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you! We'll go ahead and apply for one of the secured cards next week. I'm hoping with adding him to mine, and getting the utilization down before we did, he may get a bit of a jump next month in score. *Maybe* he'll be approved for an unsecured...

One thing the broker told us was that they'd want to see a credit line open for 9-12 months. This may be too specific a question and we may need to call the broker, but do you konw if his age of credit will go by MY credit card being opened date (2 years ago) OR when we added him as an AU?

Again, if it's too specific a situation, I'll reach out to the broker again. Ugh, it's hard to figure it all out!

This really depends on the lender and the manual underwriter. Some underwriters may not like to see AU accounts, as they mean the score is not necessarily representative of the applicants actual credit history. You may be asked to remove the AU account at underwriting - or not. Its one of those "YYMV" things. Its generally not an issue with married couples, but I don't know about unmarried couples....

Anonymous · ‎05-12-2015

Thank you for the tip. We will be married by the time we buy, so hopefully it won't be an issue.