Hi All,
First, let me say, I love this forum. I have learned a great deal. Now for the nitty-gritty...
I am looking to purchase my first car (Hyundai Sonata 2012 or 2013). My not-soon-enough-to-be ex-hubby purchased our cars previously. Due to that last fact, I most likely will not have a trade in and so I intend to wait until I have about $5K-$7K saved for a down payment, which means I will only need to borrow 15K-18K. My TU is 700, EQ 684 and EX (FAKO?) is 665. My AAoA is approximately 8-9 years with my oldest account opened 15 years ago. I have a charge off from Dec 11 joint account that I settled for less than agreed and two other accounts showing late payments (one is a paid and closed student loan, the other is my only open credit card that I have paid off and now keep below 1% utilization. The cc has a $7.5K limit). I also have two medical collections that appear on only my EX report. I make a little less than $50k per year and have been on the job nearly 5 years. With this being MY first car, I imagine the auto enhanced score will do me no favors. Any idea what I can expect as far as approvals and rates? I am not sure what I will do if I cannot qualify for a loan. Having a vehicle is a necessity now that I have a little one. Any help/ideas are most appreciated. Thanks in advance.
You're guarunteed an approval with what you quoted. You're not in bad shape at all compared to many of us who get stuck with an ugly auto loan.
Your scores don't suck, you have reasonable income, and if you can pull together 5-7K downpayment you'll be fine. I would trawl through the recent pages of the Auto Loan Approvals thread to see what lenders are doing what... there are some CU's which don't pull auto-enhanced at all (and likely EQ too), but I don't know which ones offhand. Those would likely be your best route from what you've stated; that said, is a mortgage on your record? If so, there isn't much penalty at all from what some F&I guys have posted anecdotally.
In any event, you can refinance in 6-12 months anyway post purchase if you don't like your loan rate, at that point the "first-time-buyer" penalty will have been ameloriated and you can wind up doing better with any lender which does use auto-enhanced.
Thanks so much for the information. I am quite relieved by what you've stated. I do not own a home and only have credit cards and student loans on my CRs (and the two medical collections, I mentioned previously), so I have always been stung by not having a very diverse report. But again, the information that you've given me seems promising. I know, once I get ready to get that car, I will feel much more confident about the transaction. Thanks again.