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Hello everyone,
My chapter 7 bankruptcy was discharged on 2/28/14 and I would and my goal is to be able to purchase a house in 2 years. I opened up a $1000 credit builder loan with my local credit union and also have a $1000 secured capital one card (plan to keep utilization under 10%). Looking back at it I wish I had tried for a capital one unsecured card but hindsight is 20-20. I was very happy to be approved for the secured card with capital one since I was denied a secured card by Bank of America (they were one of my creditors in my ch 7 filing).
I spoke with a mortgage lender today and they said they want to see good credit history for 2 years on 2-4 new lines of credit (installment loans plus at least 2 revolving credit cards).
My experian, equifax, and transunion credit scores as of 5/1/14 are 626, 600, and 596 respectively.
I just received my first statement for my capital one card and should have a new trade line for it around the 2nd week of June. A new trade line was just generated on 5/1/2014 for my credit builder loan.
How soon can I apply for a second credit card? I would like to do an unsecured capital one card or a Barclays unsecured if possible.
Thank you very much!
It is highly unlikely that you will get approved for an unsecured card ... but some have been successful rigght out of bankruptcy. I recommendation is to try for the unsecured card at CapOne and CreditOne. The size of the tradelines don't matter. You can try Barclays too for that matter. If you are turned down for the unsecured ones, apply online with First Progress Bank and get two secured cards, $300 each, with one online application. Then you'd be good for six months when you can try for an unsecured card again at that point. Some secured cards "graduate" to unsecured cards. You can definitely get your profile to home-mortgage ready in your target time frame. I did it in one year!
Thank you very much for your reply! I might try and go for another secured card to be on the safe side. I do have accounts in good standing (checking and a non-reaffirmed mortgage) with wells fargo and was wondering what their policy is for secured cards. Does anyone know how long post discharge from chapter 7 you have to be in order to get approved for a wells fargo secured card?
Thanks!
@Anonymous wrote:
ezdriver - nice work. One year impressive...
Thank you. I used to own my mortgage brokerage and I counselled many borrowers to get them credit-ready for mortgage applications. I simply applied to my own situation what I had told others to do. It works.
I would apply for the Capital One Platinum Card for Average Credit.
I got approved weeks after discharge and I have Cap 1 in my Ch7.
See my sig.
DON'T WORK FOR CREDIT CARDS ... MAKE CREDIT CARDS WORK FOR YOU!
If you did not include Cap 1 in your BK you should try prequalifier form. It is a soft pull. I got a Cap 1 QS card with a $500 SL the week I received my discharged. If the pre-qualifier gives good results you might be able to get an unsecured card.