Who to ask for CLI?

[NoMoreE46]

OP:   You have a Mortgage (WF) and a HELOC (BofA) but are trying to apply for a second HELOC?  

You must have run the numbers a few times in that you will be very cash positive after the sale of your home minus the reno costs (via the 2nd HELOC), 1st HELOC and Mortgage - yes?

@Ragnar375 wrote:

DTI is around 28%. 

FICO 8: 709, 707, 707

CC: 705, 696, 695

Mort: 646, 671, 685 

Credit reports show: 

-WF Mortgage pmt late 30 days - 3 times in 2018 

-BoA HELOC late 30 days - 1x 2020; May, July, Oct 2022 (these were "oops" I kick myself for!) 

- Had 5'ish oops (1-10 days) late pays sprinkled across cards over last two years (don't show on reports). 

Purpose:

- Anticipate applying for HELOC to do some renovations before selling in 6-12 months. 
- Anticipate adding a kid to an existing or new card to have for emergency purposes when they head to college in fall. 

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[Ragnar375]

Two properties. 
WF is primary residence (which I intend to sell in 6-12 mos). 
BoA is HELOC on rental property with nominal bal of $2k. No mortgage. 

[NoMoreE46]

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@Ragnar375 wrote:

Two properties. 
WF is primary residence (which I intend to sell in 6-12 mos). 
BoA is HELOC on rental property with nominal bal of $2k. No mortgage. 

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Aah very good.  

Even though you have a small BofA HELOC,  it might behoove you to get your two BofA cards paid down as a priority.

[Ragnar375]

So apply for a consolidation  loan and pay off the cc's. Destroy the cards but don't close the accounts. What type of increase in my scores might I expect and how soon? (There's not an immediate need to get a HELOC and start renovations, but sooner would be better than later.) Prob need to account for a bit of a drop in a hard inquiry too? 

[Ragnar375]

What makes you think bankruptcy? 

The cards were acquired prob near 20 years ago when my scores were 750+.
Uncle Sam required me to move 6 months after purchasing a house in 2010. Became a reluctant landlord. Had 3 mos of mortgage pmts saved up, but bad tenants (along with having to move to a higher cost of living area) put the house in foreclosure. I was able to get the house out of foreclosure, but it was near the financial ruin of me. I don't regret doing the right thing, but looking back it prob would have been best to let the house go. 
After that, I was required to move to the other side of the US for ten months. Move would have been detrimental to my kid, so the family stayed behind (in the high cost of living area). Though I was able to share rent with someone, still had to maintain two households. 

Met back up with the family a year later at the original house we almost lost. Two years to slowly get the budget settled and our heads above water, probably enjoyed having a little cash longer than we should, but here we are.
The used credit was at 95%+ for around 8-10 years. Just in last 6 mos have I worked it down to 80%'ish and all 3 FICO 8 scores at 700+. Could I have done more? Yes. 
But I've never had an available credit account reduced and bankruptcy isn't even in my vocabulary. 

[SouthJamaica]

I think "paying huge chunks" is the way to go.

I don't think you would get a CLI, and any consolidation loan you would get

would probably be on bad terms. If you can get a bad consolidation loan, and

refinance it down the road, that might work.

[charlesentis]

Go see if Prosper will give you a consolidation loan.  I was in a similiar situation where I was in teh 95% usage, with low DTI and my scores were lower than yours.  I owed about $40,000 across all cards.  Figured I would be CLD or AA fast.  Disco Actually balanced chased me twice.  Anyhow, got into the situation because My parents had medical bills and no means so I did what I had to do.

Also I had no late payments.

Anyhow, Prosper Gave me a $20,000 loan and NFCU gave me $28000 personal loan.  I consolidated everything.  Within 6 months after that I smacked the Luv button across all my cards at various times.  Now I have $108,000 in available revolving credit, with only a small balance reporting on one.   I pay the two loans still twice a month and give them extra and they are coming down decently.  Credit scores are up 70 points now.

Prosper came through first, I was shocked.  Paid off 20k and let it all report, then NFCU followed suit.  

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Ragnar375 wrote:

Looking for the best means to quickly and sizeably increase available credit in order to boost FICO (other than paying huge chunks on cards). 

What CLI might I expect for listed existing accounts? Or maybe I need to find a personal loan to consolidate? 

Have the following cards with limit and balances: 

Amex: $5200, $3800

Discover: $5100, $5000

Boa1: $23,600, $23,150

Boa2: $3900, $3620

Target: $12,500, $12,375

HD: $3000, $315 

Kohls: $1500, $0 

Had HD acct approx 2 years and they auto-increased (from $1500?) about a year ago. Remainder of accts had for 15-20 years and I don't recall ever asking for CLI. 

DTI is around 28%. 

FICO 8: 709, 707, 707

CC: 705, 696, 695

Mort: 646, 671, 685 

Credit reports show: 

-WF Mortgage pmt late 30 days - 3 times in 2018 

-BoA HELOC late 30 days - 1x 2020; May, July, Oct 2022 (these were "oops" I kick myself for!) 

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Given your aggregate credit card utilization is 88%, you are a prime candidate for balance chasing credit limit reductions (CLDs). I would be concerned about keeping the limits you have. A debt  consolidation loan is worth considering. That might help protect your existing CLs. Reducing # of payments needed may also reduce likelihood of future lates due to oversight. Setting up autopay for your accounts could protect against future lates as well.

Fwiw - A poster on the understanding Fico scoring board has a thread about a debt management plan (DMP). His is thru some non profit agency and his Fico scores took a big jump when his cards were put on the DMP. Check it out.

[youngandcreditwrthy]

well, why dont you start by asking all of them for clis assuming they are soft pulls only? How come you never got the 3xcli from Amex after two statements? 

I'm surprised your score isn't in the 580-620 range tbh. You must have a long AAOA or something great on your report to keep your score from tanking. 

Any soft pull increase you can get , ask for. Look through all you card issuers' websites. Youll be lucky to get any increases, and even if you can score 10-20k in CLIs, that's not going to help you out much. 

still got fair-good scores. However, this is why its so important to continuously ask for CLIs every 3-6 months on all cards that dont require hard pulls for CLIs. If you had higher lines from asking to begin with you'd have lower utilization and prob be 760-800 FICOs.

any while a one day late wont report on your CR, a bank card issuer WILL remember it, and it will disqualify you from any CLI or special offers. 

If any of the cards were gonna increase you, it'd be Amex or Discover. BOA would be a hard pull ime. I got a 30k personal loan from lending club for 6% a few years ago and paid it off in three, but I think rates are much higher now. 

P.S. many folks here tend to be very negative, and that's all I will say about that.

Let's say you get a personal loan to pay off the small cc balances and some of the BOA cc balances (get them to below 50%)... there will be a period of time.. a month or two where the debt from the personal loan and whatever cards you paid off will be completely off of your report (UNTIL the personal consolidation loan DOES report) and you'll have a window potentially where all that debt is just NOT on your report AT ALL..and youre score will be its HIGHEST and that's imo when youll have the best opprtunity to do what you need to do ie HELOC or whatever). If it were me doing a renovation, I would not fool around with a SECURED HELOC (where they can take your house), I would only be using unsecured debt anyway ie CREDIT CARDS like home depot, lowes etc (i used lowes once 84 mos at like 5.99% and had a 15k CL). It's always better if you can used UNSECURED debt as opposed to secured imo. You don't want to lose your property as an asset. Hope this all makes sense. there are a lot of what if scenarios to consider. 
A lot of the personal loan websites also are only soft pulls which is great! Good luck. I think you'll be fine. You have to play it safer though and literally keep in mind every single closing date of every card. every statement date. we are in 2024 now so maybe a couple of lates from 2018/2022 wont matter as much and maybe you have great banking relationships that the forum doesn't know about. 

It seems like you own property, so that's great and your net worth is probably positive unlike 60% of america if not more, but if you can get a consolidation loan... pay off all that you can, ask for CLIs at that point (and don't forget going forward to ask all cards for CLIs every 4-6 mos unless it's a hard pull)