@Anonymous wrote:
So during the financial crisis I lost my job and got mired in debt eventually charging off my cards and walking away from credit for good.
Or or so I thought.
It's been 7 years and now my girlfriend wants a house (and I wouldn't mind a new car).
So I checked my credit and was shocked that I have no credit score (negatives have fallen off and I have had no open accounts).
So I applied for a credit card with Wells Fargo where I bank and was surprised to get a card with a $2,500 limit (I have about $6,000 in savings account with them which I guess helped).
So what else can I do to re-establish credit as quickly possible (other than not exceeding 20% of my limit and paying on time). Should I apply for new cards or would that just hurt? If so, how many cards should I shoot for and what kind of cards?
My girlfriend's credit is excellent and she makes 6 figures so I think she'll be able to get a home loan on her own, and I doubt I can turn things around fast enough to help, but I told her I would do everything I can to improve my credit. She thinks my income would help with a loan, but I don't think I'll b able to raise the score in the next 6 months that she is looking to buy.
Secondary, I'd like to purchase a car in the next year.
So any advice on how to build toward these goals is appreciated!
Someone1492,
What kind of report did you pull? Is it an online overview or did you actually get a full 3B report that you can print out and keep? If you don't have one of those go to annualcreditreport.com (you are entitled to 1 free pull of all 3 bureaus once a year) You need it!!!
A couple of you weaknesses could be your AAoA your(Average Age of Accounts). Sign up for the CreditCheckTotal.com (CCT) $1 - 7 day trial and you can see things like your oldest account and your average age (they may be a little different from 1 bureau to the next but that's the way they are on your reports too. Another would be if you get added as an AU it will artificially raise your FICO8 general score but Mortage scores use a model that I think would weed that out and it wouldn't count anyway. NormanFH was right. At this point you are good so work on building your own score.
You could (probably need) to add a couple more tradelines on your own but do some research here first and look for some good pre-qual sites first:
They say that Discover likes thin, clean files so their pre-qual site is;
https://www.discovercard.com/application/fmo?execution=e1s1
Capital One is pretty liberal with handing out some level of credit from $300 up so here they are;
https://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/
Go to the bottom and there is a small, blue button that says "Find out in 60 seconds) click on it and it will tell you which cards out of their portfolio you qualify for.
These are just a couple of comments and things to think about in order to get you started.
AND NormanFH is right again; with your file, a little care and use those cards up but make sure they are paid in full every month BEFORE the statement is cut to show very low utilization and you could easily see 700's within 6mths.
