topic Re: Help with light stream denial in Personal Finance

Help with light stream denial

Manicete — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 18:35:18 GMT

If the community can shed some light on my denial. I'd greatly appreciate it.

Income I put 200k split evenly from w2 and self employed.

35k in savings/checking

10k in 401k

credit cards are under 30%

pulled tu at 783

asking for 50k personal loan

Re: Help with light stream denial

Manicete — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 19:16:36 GMT

I ended up calling lightstream and the gentlemen I spoke to didn't really have a real answer. He mentioned that they look at other factors and one thing I can say is the underwriters look at those secured credit cards and can sometimes put it under a collateral credit. Which all of it sounds like some BS. Anyways the application has been sent to re-review.

Re: Help with light stream denial

JoeRockhead — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 20:25:07 GMT

Credit cards are under 30%, is that in aggregate? Other questions:

What is your highest individual card reported utilization?
How many cards do you have, and how many are carrying a balance?
What is your DTI ratio?
How many inquiries are on your reports?
What reason did you give for wanting the loan?
How old is your newest account?
What's the average age of your credit?

Re: Help with light stream denial

Manicete — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 20:26:28 GMT

@JoeRockhead wrote:
Credit cards are under 30%, is that in aggregate? Other questions:

What is your highest individual card reported utilization?
How many cards do you have, and how many are carrying a balance?
What is your DTI ratio?
How many inquiries are on your reports?
What reason did you give for wanting the loan?

Highest Individual card is holding a 22% balance at like $800

9 cards and 7 show a balance

My dti is extremely low maybe sub 20%

I have 2 inquiries on my report one at 5 months old for a car I financed and another for a cli

reason I put home improvement

Re: Help with light stream denial

JoeRockhead — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 20:39:42 GMT

@Manicete wrote:
@JoeRockhead wrote:
Credit cards are under 30%, is that in aggregate? Other questions:

What is your highest individual card reported utilization?
How many cards do you have, and how many are carrying a balance?
What is your DTI ratio?
How many inquiries are on your reports?
What reason did you give for wanting the loan?
Highest Individual card is holding a 22% balance at like $800
9 cards and 7 show a balance
My dti is extremely low maybe sub 20%
I have 2 inquiries on my report one at 5 months old for a car I financed and another for a cli
reason I put home improvement

I'm going to put my chips on the red flag to them being the 7 of 9 cards carrying a balance. Although the balances are on the lower side, and it's not the reason they gave you. They likely view it as a profile in potential distress, or someone living beyond their means.

Re: Help with light stream denial

LIGHTNIN — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 21:00:41 GMT

What is your length of employment?

Reason for personal loan instead of a lower rate heloc?

How much equity in your home?

When was mortgage and auto loan took out?

Do you have latest on CC's?

Do you pay more then the minimum monthly payment?

Hopefully, we can help you figure this out.

Re: Help with light stream denial

Manicete — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 21:22:07 GMT

@LIGHTNIN wrote:
What is your length of employment?
Reason for personal loan instead of a lower rate heloc?
How much equity in your home?
When was mortgage and auto loan took out?
Do you have latest on CC's?
Do you pay more then the minimum monthly payment?
Hopefully, we can help you figure this out.

Length of employment on w2 is 3 years

not enough equity on the heloc

mortgage was taken out just under 2 years ago

60k in equity on home

Not sure what you meant by latest on cc's I don't have any late payments on my cc's

i always pay more than the minimum on my cards.

i literally have less than 5k in credit card debt spread out in between those cards. Hopefully it helps understand the profile better.

Re: Help with light stream denial

Manicete — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 21:23:40 GMT

@JoeRockhead wrote:
@Manicete wrote:
@JoeRockhead wrote:
Credit cards are under 30%, is that in aggregate? Other questions:

What is your highest individual card reported utilization?
How many cards do you have, and how many are carrying a balance?
What is your DTI ratio?
How many inquiries are on your reports?
What reason did you give for wanting the loan?
Highest Individual card is holding a 22% balance at like $800
9 cards and 7 show a balance
My dti is extremely low maybe sub 20%
I have 2 inquiries on my report one at 5 months old for a car I financed and another for a cli
reason I put home improvement
I'm going to put my chips on the red flag to them being the 7 of 9 cards carrying a balance. Although the balances are on the lower side, and it's not the reason they gave you. They likely view it as a profile in potential distress, or someone living beyond their means.

It's so hard to believe that because 5 out of the 7 cards are under 10%.

One card is at 18%

and the other at 20% and all of those cards have a balance of under 1k...

Re: Help with light stream denial

FicoMike0 — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 21:24:31 GMT

@JoeRockhead makes a lot of good points, but why question the given reason?

I would think a secured card would be a red flag for a request of $50,000 in unsecured credit.

Re: Help with light stream denial

JoeRockhead — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 21:51:34 GMT

@Manicete wrote:
@JoeRockhead wrote:
@Manicete wrote:
@JoeRockhead wrote:
Credit cards are under 30%, is that in aggregate? Other questions:

What is your highest individual card reported utilization?
How many cards do you have, and how many are carrying a balance?
What is your DTI ratio?
How many inquiries are on your reports?
What reason did you give for wanting the loan?
Highest Individual card is holding a 22% balance at like $800
9 cards and 7 show a balance
My dti is extremely low maybe sub 20%
I have 2 inquiries on my report one at 5 months old for a car I financed and another for a cli
reason I put home improvement
I'm going to put my chips on the red flag to them being the 7 of 9 cards carrying a balance. Although the balances are on the lower side, and it's not the reason they gave you. They likely view it as a profile in potential distress, or someone living beyond their means.
It's so hard to believe that because 5 out of the 7 cards are under 10%.
One card is at 18%
and the other at 20% and all of those cards have a balance of under 1k...

It may be hard to believe but "too many accounts with balances" is a thing, and a thing that costs people points, and it also doesn't matter if there's $5.00 , or $500 balances.

I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying that looking at it from a lenders point of view they might have concern when they look at a profile stating a $200k income, 20% DTI but is carrying balances on %80 of revolving accounts.

Re: Help with light stream denial

Manicete — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 22:07:25 GMT

@FicoMike0 wrote:
@JoeRockhead makes a lot of good points, but why question the given reason?
I would think a secured card would be a red flag for a request of $50,000 in unsecured credit.

The secured credit card is my oldest credit card when I was building my credit back in the day. So eliminating it would hurt my score, given the length of the account. It's a "self" credit card btw.

Re: Help with light stream denial

Vinjints — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 22:19:38 GMT

What good is a high score if you can't get the credit you need with it?

Re: Help with light stream denial

Manicete — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 22:24:05 GMT

@Vinjints wrote:
What good is a high score if you can't get the credit you need with it?

This was my thoughts exactly...

Re: Help with light stream denial

Vinjints — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 22:40:21 GMT

Then you know what to do and you don't need the forums permission. Cut bait with the secured card since it's actually hurting you. Payoff your cards so less than 1/3 are reporting. Keep your aggregate as low as possible on those that do. It doesn't sound like you need to worry about snowballs and avalanches. Which ones can you payoff immediately? It honestly seems like it should be a super quick fix and then let your reports update.

Re: Help with light stream denial

JoeRockhead — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 22:41:12 GMT

@Vinjints wrote:
What good is a high score if you can't get the credit you need with it?

Score alone isn't everything. Any lender is going to be looking a little harder at someone trying to borrow $50k unsecured.

Re: Help with light stream denial

Jnbmom — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 22:43:52 GMT

I have never seen that reason for a denial having a secured card , but in a strange way I can somewhat see their point possibly?

But you can close that it will still report and shouldn't hurt your scores .

Re: Help with light stream denial

Manicete — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 22:59:08 GMT

@Vinjints wrote:
Then you know what to do and you don't need the forums permission. Cut bait with the secured card since it's actually hurting you. Payoff your cards so less than 1/3 are reporting. Keep your aggregate as low as possible on those that do. It doesn't sound like you need to worry about snowballs and avalanches. Which ones can you payoff immediately? It honestly seems like it should be a super quick fix and then let your reports update.

With it being my oldest card I think it would hurt more than help in this scenario. It would cut my credit length by half in this case. And I can pay off all my cards now.

Re: Help with light stream denial

Jnbmom — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 23:34:59 GMT

@Manicete wrote:
@Vinjints wrote:
Then you know what to do and you don't need the forums permission. Cut bait with the secured card since it's actually hurting you. Payoff your cards so less than 1/3 are reporting. Keep your aggregate as low as possible on those that do. It doesn't sound like you need to worry about snowballs and avalanches. Which ones can you payoff immediately? It honestly seems like it should be a super quick fix and then let your reports update.
With it being my oldest card I think it would hurt more than help in this scenario. It would cut my credit length by half in this case. And I can pay off all my cards now.

Incorrect a closed account in good standing can remain on your reports for up to 10 years after closure .

it will not cut your age of accounts in half

Re: Help with light stream denial

FicoMike0 — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 23:56:11 GMT

Ditto @Jnbmom I've got cards going on 10 years closed still on my reports.

Doesn't this card ever graduate?

Re: Help with light stream denial

FicoMike0 — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:18:19 GMT

@Manicete

Beside closing the secured card, you might try another lender. One thing I've noticed is that each bank seems to have their own rules. The chase 5/24 is famous. Penfed has something similar, imagine my surprise when their letter turning me down for too many recent accounts also gave my fico as 850.

So, I can see a bank having a rule, no large insecure loans for anyone with a secure card. Another bank might not care.