@Anonymous wrote:SouthJamaica - uuf. Thank you. I will definitely be pulling with myfico for him to get a real picture of what's going on. Revelate wrote that any 3 TLs will do re: mortgage, however, DH only has 2 at the moment, and they're piddly, really (another reason to show a larger installment loan to demonstrate capability during a manual review). Based on this, would you agree that it's almost necessary to get the SSL, so that it at least ages 6mo come credit pull time? We're hoping to go with NFCU. In our past conversations with them, they pretty much said that we have a lot of flexibility with our goal of 40% down (to avoid jumbo). Without derogs on his file, his great DTI, the down, and his income, they seemed quite willing to work with DH on a very nice rate conventional loan (the mortgage amount wouldn't qualify for FHA). The 3 TL thing is what's driving me towards the SSL asap. I'm just questioning now the value of 3 TL vs the new TL impact. Thoughts, anyone? As always, thanks to all for helping with brainstorming all of this!
Well, let me say this... since you're dealing with NFCU, if you feel the need to beef up his credit history you should go for a credit card there. They give better starting limits than anybody.
But personally I don't think you need to beef up his credit history.
SouthJamaica, yeah? Somehow it seems that the one credit card and the one store card would not be enough to satisfy much of anything. Even Discover rejected my CLI based on "not enough other revolving credit" ie I only have discover as a credit card right now and they want me to get another. Add the comment about needing three TLs, and I'm on the fence about what to do now. I think a call to NFCU is in order 
Thank you, all, for your input!!
With six months to go it's hard to say.
The absolute best possible option, pretty up what you can on his file in the next month, and then pull your scores here and see where you are... or if you already know that do figure it out now. If things come up aces, you win, just zealously manage the reported balances and proceed with confidence.
If they don't, that's when hard choices need to be made.
A couple of thoughts: some mortgage UW's will be fine with 1 tradeline, any tradeline, AU even, doesn't matter; others won't; so you can work around that 3 tradeline issue.
When it comes to installment utilization, only Experian on the tri-merge mortgage pull counts for that, so you get points there on the SSL trick; however, the SSL does count as installment and that DOES still count for mix of credit and that does affect the other two, it just won't be as big of a deal. We're talking basically thin file here.
That said I missed the whole 740 EX line, get your 3 FICO's, pull the mortgage scores, and you may not have to do anything though since we're talking <6 months AAOA anyway, opening up an Alliant loan right now isn't going to meaningfully change that going into a mortgage, won't hand a HP, new credit is a non-issue, and may help mix of credit so I'm not entirely sold on not doing it but I do agree with SJ in that perhaps some caution should be applied.
