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Hi! I am needing suggestions for unsecured cards that may approve my husband. He has a 591 EQ FICO, no collections, public records etc., a $500 installment loan with a $311 balance opened June 1st with our CU (got it for car repairs), auto loan opened Jan 2012, never late, Fingerhut revolving $250 limit just reported a few days ago, cap1 secured $200 limit (he only had to put $99 down) hasn't reported yet but he's had it for about 3 weeks, he also has a repo on his CR from 2008, but that's the only negative thing. He was just rebucketed so his EX score dropped from 559 to 534 when his last 2 collections came off recently, TU FAKO dropped 27 pts as well, EQ has not dropped yet. I don't know his TU score, but his CR is the same all across the board except EX isn't reporting the FH revolving acct, according to info I got in the rebuilding forum FH doesn't report to EX. I've read 3-4 cards is best to have, so I'd like to get 2 more reporting if anyone has suggestions of who would approve him with this report/score. Thanks!!
By your post your DH already has 2 cards reporting, and an installment loan as well.
That's a good setup for credit building, honestly I'd simply wait for six months to a year and let the magic of time and the power of thin file building help him in this instance. Maybe one more card might help slightly (I went with 3 personally when I was in this situation), but it's a marginal improvement; odds are his scores are going to be north of 600 in six months, and possibly better than that even. In a year I went from 561 to 646, and qualified for every decent card I applied for (Chase Freedom / Amex BCP being the two main ones).
Realistically, in six months depending how the numbers shake out you may have a shot at a decent unsecured card rather than something which isn't of much value beyond a tradeline farm. Personally I would hang out for that rather than simply picking up whatever happens to be available.
Outside of that the only thing I'd even consider doing in his case would be picking up a secured BOFA card with whatever the minimum deposit is ($300?) and have him run his financial life through that as an everyday card for the eventual graduation and likely CLI in a year; however, it really isn't necessary, he's in a good spot right now.
@Revelate wrote:By your post your DH already has 2 cards reporting, and an installment loan as well.
That's a good setup for credit building, honestly I'd simply wait for six months to a year and let the magic of time and the power of thin file building help him in this instance. Maybe one more card might help slightly (I went with 3 personally when I was in this situation), but it's a marginal improvement; odds are his scores are going to be north of 600 in six months, and possibly better than that even. In a year I went from 561 to 646, and qualified for every decent card I applied for (Chase Freedom / Amex BCP being the two main ones).
Realistically, in six months depending how the numbers shake out you may have a shot at a decent unsecured card rather than something which isn't of much value beyond a tradeline farm. Personally I would hang out for that rather than simply picking up whatever happens to be available.
Outside of that the only thing I'd even consider doing in his case would be picking up a secured BOFA card with whatever the minimum deposit is ($300?) and have him run his financial life through that as an everyday card for the eventual graduation and likely CLI in a year; however, it really isn't necessary, he's in a good spot right now.
Thanks for the advice. The cap1 actually isn't reporting yet, but will be soon, so he'll have the 2 revolving accts reporting, but FH doesn't report to EX so I wanted at least get 2 reporting to EX and 3 to TU and EQ. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on kohls store and gymboree visa which is through us bank, no go on both I figured he'd at least get a really low CL. I shop at kohls and gymboree frequently and the rewards would've been a nice plus. I may have him recon the gymboree visa/us bank. If he can't get that i'm gonna just leave it alone and garden the 2 he has. *Maybe* app for our CU CC. Usually CU are pretty easy, ive seen worse credit profiles get approved through NFCU and other CU, ours is a little local CU.