topic Re: Building Credit in Credit Card Applications

Building Credit

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 00:25:14 GMT

Hello,

I've recently gotten into the credit world and have been hyper-focused on establishing my credit history. It started off a nightmare clearing out collections and disputing things but I finally have all derogatories deleted - a clean slate. My scores are as follows:

705 equifax

723 transunion

717 Experian

I have 6 unique inquiries appearing in the last year, 1 within the past 6 months (5/20). I've got an auto loan with a low balance, and two credit cards that usually don't carry a balance so I'm always under 10% utilization. My length of credit history is 1 year 4 months from my capital one card (started as secured) and my average account age is 7 months. The capital one card has a $500.00 limit and the citi doublecash has a $1000.00 limit. I really would like to have one more card to have another tradeline building some history. I want to apply for either a discover it card or a bank of america rewards card but am remaining patient - I don't want to waste an inquiry. How long should I wait to apply? What kind of credit limit should I expect? I make around 50k per year

Re: Building Credit

stargazer25 — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 04:56:30 GMT

With that short AAoA I would be concerfned with tanking your AAoA even more so and dropping your credit score.Too many credit inquiries will drop your score as well. Usually with small limit cards like that you will end up with other smaller limit cards b/c no prime card wants to be the one to give you the big SL. With that said, I think you can check for a prequal with Disccover. I would wait till your AAoA hits at least a year before your next move.

This comes from somone that started with a $1K secured card from Cap1.

Re: Building Credit

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 07:48:19 GMT

Your profile is fairly solid, it isnt bad at all. Short credit history, yes....but not the end of the world. I'm not sure, I feel like theres definitely a chance you can get approved but at the same time not sure about limits. Like the other poster mention, maybe possibly wait till your average age of accounts hit a year or so could help. Hopefully your next approval can get you to the 3-5k range at least, you never know. I know theres a lot of members here who luckily hit the 5k range on their next approval and it all goes up hill from there in terms of bigger limits.

Both the Discover It and Bofa Cash rewards are prime and solid picks. Maybe someone can chime in on which is easier to get ya foot in the door with....

Re: Building Credit

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 12:37:54 GMT

Some of the inquiries will leave the 12mo window if I wait till AAoA hits 1 year as well. Thanks for the advice I think I will look into applying around then

Re: Building Credit

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 09:24:52 GMT

My son has a credit profile pretty similar to yours. He just started building credit less than a year ago and has scores in the low 700s, and he got approved for $8,300 on one of the cards at Navy Federal Credit Union. YMMV, but if you can somehow qualify to get into NFCU I think it's worth a shot.

Re: Building Credit

jdxprs1 — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 10:01:31 GMT

Where do you do your banking?

Re: Building Credit

medicgrrl — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 11:10:19 GMT

My son's length of credit was only 9 months (auto loan) when he was approved for a $2000 Discover IT NHL card. His scores were nearing 700 at the time and he had no other accounts listed on his report.

Re: Building Credit

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 11:51:44 GMT

I bank with BB&T

Re: Building Credit

jdxprs1 — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 12:29:19 GMT

Go to the bank and sit down with them to apply. Explain what you want. A go to credit card! Ask for 5 or 10k. See what they can do for you.

Re: Building Credit

SouthJamaica — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 13:18:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello,

I've recently gotten into the credit world and have been hyper-focused on establishing my credit history. It started off a nightmare clearing out collections and disputing things but I finally have all derogatories deleted - a clean slate. My scores are as follows:

705 equifax
723 transunion
717 Experian

I have 6 unique inquiries appearing in the last year, 1 within the past 6 months (5/20). I've got an auto loan with a low balance, and two credit cards that usually don't carry a balance so I'm always under 10% utilization. My length of credit history is 1 year 4 months from my capital one card (started as secured) and my average account age is 7 months. The capital one card has a $500.00 limit and the citi doublecash has a $1000.00 limit. I really would like to have one more card to have another tradeline building some history. I want to apply for either a discover it card or a bank of america rewards card but am remaining patient - I don't want to waste an inquiry. How long should I wait to apply? What kind of credit limit should I expect? I make around 50k per year

I think you could build your scores easily. Credit card utilization & installment utilization are 2 totally separate things.

Do the following before applying; once you've done these and everything's reported, you'll be good to apply.

1. since you have 2 credit cards, have 1 card report a zero balance each month, with the other card reporting a balance of 10% or less (but not zero)

2. since you've got 1 installment loan with a low balance, just make sure that it's at 9% or less of the original loan amount (but not zero)

Once these are in place, get your FICO scores and go ahead and apply for whichever of those cards you feel like getting. Or come back and ask for recommendations.

Re: Building Credit

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 14:44:32 GMT

I personally recommend the Discover It card, especially if you can get a good prequalification offer on their website - you want to look for a solid, single-figure APR offer or at least a small-range APR offer (no more than 3% to 4% between low and high APR), either of which indicates your chances of approval are good. Discover has been wonky lately about CLI's but if you're lucky and keep your card in good order you may be able to get regular CLI's at as low as 30-day intervals by hitting the "luv" button.

To build credit, ideally you should have 3 credit cards plus at least one good installment loan; be careful about taking personal loans unless they're from credit unions or major banks - you want to avoid personal-finance companies. Follow the recommendations in this thread about how to manage your credit cards and your overall credit, and you should start to see your scores going up before too long.

Re: Building Credit

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 16:38:26 GMT

I think you should apply for a few cards and then garden until the age of your accounts goes up. Your average age is small, you can still run that down by applying for a few new credit lines without majorly affecting your score.

If you don't need a loan a mortgage or a new rental soon I suggest doing this

Re: Building Credit

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 23:28:57 GMT

Thank you all so much for the advice. I spent many evenings doing research and trying to make the best prepared approach. I waited but not for long - I applied and was approved for three cards. American Express Blue Cash Everyday for 4k, Discover It for 6k (they are my favorite) and Chase Freedom for 4.5k. I took some big risks but they were all instant approval and i am glad it paid off. I will be gardening for a season and working on CLI's at appropriate intervals, possibly get another auto loan in a year after paying this one down, and in the next 2-3 years hopefully be in a good spot to start shopping for a house. Thanks all