After some reading yesterday/today, I'm aware now of the SSL Technique and what Alliant offers. I called and spoke with them yesterday, and was pleased with their 24/7 customer service availability, friendliness, and confirmation of the details being the same: soft pull to become member, soft pull to open savings, soft pull to open SSL. I started the process for my husband to join/open an account (I told him, of course).
I know the idea is to get him a borderline jumbo/conventional loan in about six months' time, plus, afterwards he wants to buy a motorcycle and a truck (and his list goes on...). He's typically a cash buyer, but we're wanting to get his credit on track, so after reading this thread (http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Share-Secure-Loan-SSL-installment-500-vs-...) I am thinking about doing a $30k loan, rather than the $500 suggested loan for this technique for him, ideally to also increase his chances of getting higher limit loans in the future. I would pay it down to $300 and make little payments until the end to ride out the loan and it's benefits to AAoA for the full 15 years possible (5 yrs life of loan + 10 yrs on report). The interest would still be minimal, so I'm leaning in this direction.
I came across DCU.org, though, and noticed that their savings acct (max $750) provides 5%+ APY, and their SSL goes out 10 years with a minimum $200 loan, and it's 1%ish less than the one offered by Alliant. The cost? A hard pull to join. Tomorrow I'll find out if there's an additional HP for the savings and another for the loan. That's worst case scenario. More details here: https://www.dcu.org/loans/savings-secured.html#rates.
I'm not sure which I should open for him now.
With Alliant there are no hard pulls, which is a nice bonus, plus the opportunity to do a larger limit installment loan that will look good on the report when he wants to go get the other loans in the future.
With DCU, he'd have a hard pull, which I don't believe will have a huge impact, since he has so few on his report, anyway, and within six months it'll start devaluing just in time for the house and the truck/motorcycle. The interest rate would be less, but in both scenarios, it's already negligable.
... I think I'm going to move forward with Alliant for him. I just am bummed to not use such a great offer like what DCU has for this sort of situation, I think. Any thoughts as to why I should lean more towards DCU vs Alliant, or anything else? TIA
Great job! 