My detailed credit profile. Refi soon or wait?

[black_citi]

Hey guys,

I would like to refi my car soon but I would like some expert advice before I do.

I went ahead and purchased my credit scores and reports from here. Here is all the info:

Aaoa: 4 years

EX: 651
EQ: 676
TU: 683

I've had many credit cards. All have been paid on time. Except one (more details a little later)

EQ is showing a 17% UTL. TU is showing a 15%. Nothing is showing from EX. My car payment is current and on time. I've made 6 payments so far on it to Santander.

I have 3 credit cards currently. They are in order from oldest to newest with credit limits.

Merrick bank: 8 months/1400 CL
Citibank diamond preferred: 1 week/1000 CL
Amazon store card: 1 week/700 CL

The last 2 are very new lol so I don't know if they will count by the time I hope to refinance in April. I have no mortgage or student loans.

That one credit card I was late on was a Chase card. Its a long story how it happened but to shorten it up, I owed 5900 and I agreed to pay 130 a month starting in sept 2010 until debt was paid. Fortunately my interest was 0%. 2 years later (Nov 2012), I owed 1700 and I decided to settle the account for 1000. Chase made some "adjustments" to the account plus I was paying more some months when I could which is why the balance fell so quickly. So now that account is over a year old. The only other negative is a 5 year old repo (march 2009). I have never filed BK and I have 5 inquiries in the past year showing on TU. I am a 13% risk factor for the banks.

I will owe (after I pay 3100 to the principal) about 16500 on my car. I was hoping to go with a CU. If not I was thinking of Citibank. I make about 27k gross. Either way, do you think I can get approved based on this information? I want to try and do this in April. My note currently is 429@13.69%. Car is a 2012 and will have about 40k miles in April.

[Creditaddict]

Are you member of any credit unions yet?

I wouldn't count on Citi to be a good option but you never know I guess... but CU first.

[pizzadude]

I agree that getting out from that interest rate soon is a good idea.   What would you estimate the book value of your car to be?

Also I agree that starting to talk with a CU or two might be a good idea.

[black_citi]

I called a CU a few weeks ago. They told me my car was worth about 17k. I owed at that time about 20300. She said I would need to bring cash to the table but she wasn't sure I would get approved since all they did was gather my vehicle info. She also said that once I refinance (if approved) I will automatically become a member. By the time I do this I will owe about 19900 or so and I will have 3k to eat up the equity. I hope that will be enough lol.

[Creditaddict]

How many months remain on your current car loan?

was it 60 or 72 originally?

[black_citi]

72 originally. I have 66 payments left if I subtracted that correctly lol. My first payment was in September.

[pizzadude]

WIth those scores I think you won't have any trouble getting a better rate than you have now, and hopefully you'll have the loan paid down by that time as you mentioned.

[Creditaddict]

I would also make sure to refinance for 60 months or less... don't take the loan back up to 72.

[black_citi]

Good idea. That's less interest.

[juggalo9er]

i will try sooner rather than later. credit scores are one thing but if you can lower the ltv of the refinance a cu may just give you a rate in the low fives. to put this into perspective i have a 17000 loan @ 20.5% 72 months made 1 year of payments refinanced @ 4.9% for 48 months and it lowered payments to 275 thus eliminating 11 payments and lowering monthly payment. i, like you had to put money down 2000 but in the long run it was well worth it