@wollepopolle wrote:Inspried by a similar post here, I have a question: How can I diversify my credit history?
I came to the US in 2003. I am originally from Europe. I have now five credit card accounts in excellent standing with (Amex, BoA, Discover, PNC, CapOne) that I use and pay off every month. The average age on those is approx 2.5 years). Also, I am an AU on my wife's 15 year old GM card account which, I believe, helps with average age of accounts on my report.
I have no other type of credit other than revolving credit. I just bought a used car from a prviate seller a year ago and won't (hopefully) buy another one for the next eight years. I paid for it in full. My wife has the mortgage for the house in her name as she already owned the house when we met.Thus, I am not on there, either.
Now, my question is how can I diversify my credit in a meaningful way? I just don't want to do it for its own sake. Is it perhaps possible that I could be something like an "authorized participant" on my wife's mortgage so that it would appear on my report as well. We're with a local credit union but I am not sure if they would me just put on the mortage without drawing up another mortgage agreement (with closing costs and appraisal and all the pain associated with it). I guess that would be a question for the mortgage forum but maybe I could collect some in sightful responses here as well.
Not to worry. There are, as others have posted, plenty of folks with high credit scores and no installment loans. I made a note of one of our posters who was over 800 without a mortgage or any type of installment loan.
So, are you just casually worrying, or do you have cause to believe your score is lower than you'd like?
It's very calming for a worried soul to pull your reports from a nice place - like here. With a FICO score -- so you know where you stand. Then they'll tell you what's helping and hurting your score. And you can play with the simulator to see what would potentially happen to your FICO if you chose to do any number of financial-type things.
In case it helps - those without revolving credit are hit FICO-wise more than those without installment credit.
It's kinda like being upset about not being on the latest diet because you're already at an ideal weight. 
Oh, just wanted to add something. And no, I'm not obsessed with signature loans, or paid to be a sig loan shill. I just figured that someone might ask about this:
Signature loans report and are scored like any other installment loan. The "signature" part just means that they're not secured by property --a car, a house, a new central air system. They aren't treated as consumer finance loans or any other slightly derogatory TL. They're generally simple interest, although maybe not always. The ones from our CU were.
There you go, more than anyone ever wanted to know about signature loans! 
@haulingthescoreup wrote:Oh, just wanted to add something. And no, I'm not obsessed with signature loans, or paid to be a sig loan shill.
Signature loans report and are scored like any other installment loan. The "signature" part just means that they're not secured by property --a car, a house, a new central air system. They aren't treated as consumer finance loans or any other slightly derogatory TL. They're generally simple interest, although maybe not always. The ones from our CU were.
There you go, more than anyone ever wanted to know about signature loans!
I didn't even know that I wanted to know that much about signature loans, but it turned out I learned something new and it was very informative. Thanks 
!
