My husband and I are hoping to start a business. The guy we want to partner with brings lots of exp and knowledge...but bad credit too. He recently had to close his business down and move out of house.
This is an opportunity we had not planned for and thus have not saved for (just bought house and tapped savings). Needless to say, this is a shoestring budget deal. We need some funds to get us going (ideally plan to open doors in March but must prepare location between now and then). We most likely will go LLC route. Do not have business plan yet but will as well as very defined membership agreement (we've been burned before). We have no assets to offer a bank as collateral (other than a few cheap cars) but a loan is obviously the best choice here...just don't know if it is feasible.
In the meantime maybe someone could offer some advice...
Should we apply for a high limit card just to see if we can get anything off the ground? If we apply for a business card will our prospective partners finances have to be included? What kind of CL can we expect? If approved for high limit personal or business card will it hurt our chances of getting a loan after the fact? Obviously we would prefer a loans rates since we will be carrying balance, but we don't want to go through too much or spend too (business plan, lawyers fees, etc) much just to find out we can't get any$$$. If we could at least get a high limit card, we could use it if nothing panned out. And would have a nice emergency card if we could get a loan after all.
Would it hurt if we applied for BOTH personal and business cards? We wouldn't use the personal if we got the business unless we just had to.
Will banks and CU's laugh at us if we apply for loan personal or business? Which is harder to get? Again, will our partners finances have to be disclosed? Would a "lending club" be a good option for us? Ideally we would like 25K.
Here's our info:
my EQ 783, dh EQ 795
gross mnthly inc 6400 (as of 10/1/10 will be 6720)
cap one visa plat CL 4250 , bal 717-- have ability to pif
cap one visa plat CL 1000, bal 0
cap one mc CL 550, bal 0
(i think all tree cap one accts 10 years old)
direct student loan 3000-- have a really low monthly auto pay...could pay down just haven't yet
paid off car loan January i think
bought first home in april, BoA mtg current bal 242k - mthly pmt 1595 + additional principal pmts of 400 each month
we have worked very hard for a very long time on cr NOMORE BADDIES 
multiple inq for home loan (i think my score report shows 5) -- we tried to buy for 2 years and were under contract 4 times before one went the distance
about 5k in checking no savings to speak of
I know this is a long one so thanks in advance.
