Advice needed for new guy...

Anonymous · ‎03-09-2018

Hello, I stumbled upon this forum a few months back and I've been obsessed ever since. I messed my credit young from being immature with money. I defaulted on 3 cards that went to collections. I have paid everything off and moving in the right direction. My score was 530ish and in the last 2 years I am just shy of 700! I started rebuilding with USAA secured, Captiol One Platinum, and Captiol One QS1. A month ago I applied and got approved for a AMEX Everyday, AMEX Gold card, Citi Double cash, and Discover IT. The wife and I plan on purchasing a house next summer. What should I do? I'm debating on getting a couple more cards or I'm am also thinking about taking it easy and gardening these and improve them. Any help would greatly appreciated!

Meanmchine · ‎03-09-2018

"The wife and I plan on purchasing a house next summer"

If your goal is getting a mortgage in the next few months, Id suggest getting a mod to move this thread to the mortgage topics.

>3/2016 EX 644 CK-TU 642 CK-EQ 660 WalMart- 671.
>5/2023 All 3 reports 840ish (F8) F9s = 850 but my app finger is still twitching

toadsworth · ‎03-09-2018

If a mortgage is in the near future for you then you need to optimize then hit the garden ASAP. Congrats on your journey!

Kind of have everything I want now, creditwise. Undeliberately gardening until I have some spending to do and find a 100,000 Amex Platinum offer lol

Started my credit journey August 2016, after abstaining from credit for years after some poor financial choices in high school. Started with scores in the 580s. Current scores 11/6/18 - EQ: 754 TU: 757 EX: 743

From oldest to newest: DuPage CU Visa Platinum, SL 500 now 3750, Cap1 Platinum SL 300 PC'd to QS now 1600, Alliant Credit Union Share Secured Loan $500, Amex BCE SL 5000 now 600, Neiman Marcus SL 700 now 10000, Target RedCard SL 400 now 2900, Amex ED SL 10000 now 500 (combined with Cash Magnet), Chase AARP SL 800 now 3300, Chase Amazon Prime SL 1000 now 10000, Honda Lease, Discover it SL 1000 now 7000, Synchrony PayPal 2% CB SL 3000 now 10000, Barclays Uber Visa SL 800 now 2100, Citi ThankYou Preferred SL 3300 now 5300, Chase Ritz-Carlton SL 10000 now 1500 (moved to other cards to get annual fee refund), Comenity Total Rewards Visa SL 2000 now 3250, US Bank Cash+ SL 500 recon'd to 10000, US Bank Reserve LOC 1000, Union Bank Rewards Visa SL 5000 now 5000, Amex Cash Magnet SL 9900 now 20000, Cap1 Venture SL 10000 now 10000, Discover it 3000 SL now 4000, Amex SPG Luxury 3100 SL now 3100, Amex Amazon Business Prime 10000 SL now 10000, Amex Gold NPSL, US Bank Premier LOC 5000, US Bank Visa Platinum 5400 SL currently reconning

Combined revolving CL $135,300

Goal: Spring 2019 800+ club, $50,000 combined Amex limit

JuliusC · ‎03-09-2018

Straight to the garden with you and close the door to any pulls. Mortgages don’t like people to seek new credit and having those accounts age, same with inquiries, will only improve your score better. Good luck with the mortgage!

Anonymous · ‎03-09-2018

If by next summer you mean summer 2020 then you should still be fine for the mortgage if you decided to apply for more cards before gardening. However, you have some nice cards currently, and off the top of my head the first things I would suggest would be to look at the Chase card since you appear to be in to travel rewards as well as cash back. But since you just opened four new cards and presumably have opened at least one of those other ones within the last 2 years, you would be denied any approvals for chase's main cards because you're already over 5/24.

There are a few one-off cards that you may find lucrative such as the Citi aadvantage Platinum as a Travel Reward card or the u.s. bank Cash+ as a cash back card, but all in all it sounds like you've got some pretty good cards in your lineup right now and unless you wanted to go for a given one off card you seem to be in a pretty good spot if you just wanted to start gardening now. If in fact those four cards that you got last month are actually the only ones that you've opened in the last 24 months, you might want to consider getting a Chase Freedom because of the rotating 5% categories and the elevated sign up bonus going on right now if you can nab that. You would be able to accumulate the points so that in a couple of years after you get your mortgage and are no longer over 5/24 you could then get a Sapphire card and would already have a nice base of points

UncleB · ‎03-10-2018

@Anonymouswrote:
Hello, I stumbled upon this forum a few months back and I've been obsessed ever since. I messed my credit young from being immature with money. I defaulted on 3 cards that went to collections. I have paid everything off and moving in the right direction. My score was 530ish and in the last 2 years I am just shy of 700! I started rebuilding with USAA secured, Captiol One Platinum, and Captiol One QS1. A month ago I applied and got approved for a AMEX Everyday, AMEX Gold card, Citi Double cash, and Discover IT. The wife and I plan on purchasing a house next summer. What should I do? I'm debating on getting a couple more cards or I'm am also thinking about taking it easy and gardening these and improve them. Any help would greatly appreciated!

Hi @Anonymous, and welcome to myFICO!

If you're wanting advice on maximizing your score/profile for your mortgage, @Meanmchine is right that it would be best to move this thread to the Mortgage Loans board (I can help with that).

On the other hand if by next summer you mean 2019 and you want advice on getting a new card now, it would be helpful to know more about your immediate needs, i.e. if you want cash back, airline points, etc.

redE2move · ‎03-10-2018

No more new cards for sure. It helps to be able to show you have a positive payment history. I've talked with several LOs and when asked about 2 years payment history they say it is borderline for mortgage approval but with the right LO can be doable. They prefer to see 5 or more yrs of positive history. Accounts opened a year or less are red flags for them unless it decreases your DTI and be prepared to explain why you opened an account less than a year old. They see this a sign of being thirsty for credit.

Anonymous · ‎03-10-2018

Getting a bunch of credit cards is not a viable approach if you want a mortgage. Infact, the opposite. You need to essentially work towards being non mortgage debt free. Signing up for credit cards doen't show you anything you want to show to a mortgage bank that would lead them to think you are a worthy risk. Save cash, payoff debt, maximize your income. That is what you should do. If I were the mortgage guy, the first thing I would ask you after I pulled up your credit report is: Why are you opening 4 or 5 credit cards in spurts? Why are you doing this (even if youre running no balances)? You better have a good explanation for this other than it's a (bad) fad you picked up on a credit card forum. They will naturally think you are increasing your debt potential exponentially by those. They are likely going to tell you to close a bunch of them for an approval, which really shouldn't matter to you in the least because you didn't need them in the first place.

AverageJoesCredit · ‎03-10-2018

Balls in your court Op, until you clarify your position, the replies you get seem to gravitate towards the buying a house which is a biggie. Like MM and UncleB said, youll get better advice in Mortgage forum.

One quick note, if you are fast approaching 700 and all of your current cards fulfill your needs at this time, no harm laying off the cc hunt until after the morgage. This will allow time for many of your inqs to fall off or lessen impact by tme you begin your hunt.just a thought.

SouthJamaica · ‎03-10-2018

@Anonymouswrote:
Hello, I stumbled upon this forum a few months back and I've been obsessed ever since. I messed my credit young from being immature with money. I defaulted on 3 cards that went to collections. I have paid everything off and moving in the right direction. My score was 530ish and in the last 2 years I am just shy of 700! I started rebuilding with USAA secured, Captiol One Platinum, and Captiol One QS1. A month ago I applied and got approved for a AMEX Everyday, AMEX Gold card, Citi Double cash, and Discover IT. The wife and I plan on purchasing a house next summer. What should I do? I'm debating on getting a couple more cards or I'm am also thinking about taking it easy and gardening these and improve them. Any help would greatly appreciated!

1. Absolutely stop applying for new stuff.

2. Keep your statement balances at low or zero.

3. When you get within a couple of months of the mortgage app,

start maintaining your revolving accounts at all-but-one-at-zero.