Should I wait or should I buy?

[TooTallBigBear]

Greetings,

My situation:  Chapter 7 bankruptcy just discharged.  Reaffirmed my auto loan believing it would help me rebuild credit after the discharge.  After the discharge, found out the finance company will NOT report the reaffirmed loan to the reporting agencies.  Should I continue with the current vehicle and loan and wait a year or so for my credit to improve and then trade-in for new vehicle and new loan, or would it accelerate my credit score improvement to go ahead and trade-in now to a new vehicle and a new loan to immediately get it on my credit report, even with a higher post-bankruptcy interest rate that I can refinance in a year or two with improved credit score?

Thanks so much for any input!

[Patient957]

If you currently have no mortgage, you might consider an SSL to optimize your rebuild.  Search SSL if you don't know about it already.  Then it's actually good to keep your auto loan off your report.

If you have a mortgage, I don't think the SSL or car loan would matter much.  In that case, probably best to focus on adding quality revolving tradelines over time.

[FicoMike0]

@Patient957 makes a good point. Score wise, an auto loan with a balance more than 9% will hurt your scores vs a ssl paid to 9%. This assumes no other installment loan.

[TooTallBigBear]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll look into that.