Hi all. New guy here who found this forum by accident and happily discovered it was a pot of gold. 
I'm prepping for a start-up business loan and needing to tend to my personal credit. Right now I'm waiting for payments to go through with various banks paying 90% utilization down to 10% across my three cards. Besides that, I have no negatives, my AAoA according to EX is 3.6yrs, and I've got $5000 combined credit limits across three cards. I have a mix of revolving and installment accounts (student + car loan), and aside from a credit union running a HP on EQ (for which no credit was issued :< - should I dispute this?), no other recent inquiries.
I'm wanting to do what I can to raise my score. If the lender I go with will be issuing HPs to my personal credit and I need to save all the inquiries I can, then I'll just pay off my cards and stop there. But if the lender I go with will just be using a SP credit report to issue credit, it might also be in my interest to request some HP CLIs and add a tradeline or two if I can before applying for their loan. (I've talked to lenders in both categories. I just haven't made the final decision as my numbers and thus their $$ offers aren't in yet.)
For the first (just pay down cards)
- I've went ahead with the forum's golden rule and paid down my utilization to 10%, even though the lenders I was talking with tended to cite 30% as a rule. I'm just waiting for the payments to process
- I was sad to find out that Credit Karma is VantageScore 3.0 aka FAKO, but they suggested paying my cards down could boost my score 100 points. Is that reasonable or expecting too much?
- I really don't want to wait another month for my bank to run a new bill cycle for my report to update. Can I call my bank and ask them to report the new amounts? Can I be sneaky and call and ask them to change my billing periods, thus triggering reports sooner? (My banks are smaller and I couldn't find information on the internet whether they allow this, but it seems they might.) Or should I file a dispute with the CRAs?
If I Also go with Part Two (Thicken my Trade Lines)
- I'm not sure what is strategically best to do next. Really, whatever get's me approved for the biggest business loan amount, but I don't know the magic formula to get there.
- If I can afford to lose an inquiry on each bureau, my thought is to request a CLI on my Regions Prestige Card (HP on TU), a CLI on my PNC CashBuilder Card (HP on whichever CRA I request, who would you recommend I choose), and then apply for an AMEX (HP on EX). (I just SP CLIed on my Chase FU a few months ago.)
- However, if HPs are precious, I may just request a CLI on the PNC card, as creditboards.com suggests they are far less stingy with their limits than Regions is.
What strategy advice would you have?
@Anonymous wrote:Hi all. New guy here who found this forum by accident and happily discovered it was a pot of gold.
I'm prepping for a start-up business loan and needing to tend to my personal credit. Right now I'm waiting for payments to go through with various banks paying 90% utilization down to 10% across my three cards. Besides that, I have no negatives, my AAoA according to EX is 3.6yrs, and I've got $5000 combined credit limits across three cards. I have a mix of revolving and installment accounts (student + car loan), and aside from a credit union running a HP on EQ (for which no credit was issued :< - should I dispute this?), no other recent inquiries.
I'm wanting to do what I can to raise my score. If the lender I go with will be issuing HPs to my personal credit and I need to save all the inquiries I can, then I'll just pay off my cards and stop there. But if the lender I go with will just be using a SP credit report to issue credit, it might also be in my interest to request some HP CLIs and add a tradeline or two if I can before applying for their loan. (I've talked to lenders in both categories. I just haven't made the final decision as my numbers and thus their $$ offers aren't in yet.)
For the first (just pay down cards)
- I've went ahead with the forum's golden rule and paid down my utilization to 10%, even though the lenders I was talking with tended to cite 30% as a rule. I'm just waiting for the payments to process
- I was sad to find out that Credit Karma is VantageScore 3.0 aka FAKO, but they suggested paying my cards down could boost my score 100 points. Is that reasonable or expecting too much?
- I really don't want to wait another month for my bank to run a new bill cycle for my report to update. Can I call my bank and ask them to report the new amounts? Can I be sneaky and call and ask them to change my billing periods, thus triggering reports sooner? (My banks are smaller and I couldn't find information on the internet whether they allow this, but it seems they might.) Or should I file a dispute with the CRAs?
If I Also go with Part Two (Thicken my Trade Lines)
- I'm not sure what is strategically best to do next. Really, whatever get's me approved for the biggest business loan amount, but I don't know the magic formula to get there.
- If I can afford to lose an inquiry on each bureau, my thought is to request a CLI on my Regions Prestige Card (HP on TU), a CLI on my PNC CashBuilder Card (HP on whichever CRA I request, who would you recommend I choose), and then apply for an AMEX (HP on EX). (I just SP CLIed on my Chase FU a few months ago.)
- However, if HPs are precious, I may just request a CLI on the PNC card, as creditboards.com suggests they are far less stingy with their limits than Regions is.
What strategy advice would you have?
You should:
1. apply for no new credit
2. pay down your loans as much as possible but not to zero
3. let one revolving account report a small balance and have the others report a zero balance
4. forget about Credit Karma, it's baloney
5. no you shouldn't waste your time disputing the HP
6. if you change the billing period that will probably postpone rather than accelerate their reporting, so chill out and wait
7. in general chill out and wait.... at least 45 days from when you've got things optimized
8. do not apply for any CLI's that would entail a HP
9. yes paying a Chase card down to zero will accelerate the reporting of the zero balance
+1 @SouthJamaica
