I recently took an auto loan with Penfed. The car costs 20k and I put down 8k in cash and trade-in and paid the remaining 12k with a PenFed blank check. As of now, I owe 100% of the 12k Penfed loan. I am thinking if I make my first payment to Penfed of 3k, that will put me under 80% of the total loan owed. Will that help my credit report and credit score? I do want to buy a house in the next 6 months so anything that helps my score and report would be helpful.
The thing with Penfed is that if you make an early payment, then you go several months without making any payments as early payments don’t really go to the principal. Does it look bad if I pay 3k for the first month and then make no payments for 5 months?
I have 3 credit cards with about 50k of total credit limit, but I only use about 2-3% and pay back in full monthly. I had about 800-820 credit score prior to buying the car, but took 2-4 inquiries recently (credit card CLI hard pull, auto loan app hard pull, dealer ID check, soft pull apparently but I doubt it, and auto insurance change, soft pull apparently).
