Does adding my soon to be wife as an authorized user help her credit(Barclay, cap1, discover, syn)?

[Anonymous]

Hey guys, so we want to be able to buy a house in about a year, getting married in October. 

So we got different issues, I have some high credit limits and longish credit card history, but I have student loan and a personal loan debt. She has no debt, a slightly lesser of an income, but peaking at her credit karma we will need some work.

Ok so first question for Barclay, Cap1, discover or synchrony does adding her as an authorized user help her? I added her to Barclay about a month and half ago, and nothing has shown up. I also just added her to a nice 7 year old cap1 card with 7k limit and perfect payment history zero balance.

Is this plan going to remotely work? Or do we need to try and get her another card beyond the cap1 she has, and get that card to a higher credit limit as wel

[RSX]

if you plan to buy in a year - have her open the CC accounts on her own, right away - you want those to be 1 year old or greater before the mortgage

for the AU - some companies it never shows up - i have had this happen

i have rules i follow for an AU addition

1. CC must be PIF every month, or less than 1% util month over month 

2. no lates on that CC - EVER

3. not a card you will ever use for BT

4. this is a suggestion, not a rule - keep the AU card when it arrives - have her on there for credit score boost only - decide AFTER you get married if you want to give her the card

[Anonymous]

What's on her CK? 

If it's a score issue you should be paying attention to FICO scores, mortgage scores in particular. Without spending much money you could just get a free Experian FICO8 score/membership from their site and see what that looks like, mortgage scores are related to that more than CK/Vantage scores.

AUs can work, kind of. Mortgage lenders want to see the person have their own accounts and may exclude or ask to remove AUs. If she has nothing negative on her report you could build it to a really high score in 12 months with info around here.

Also, when adding AUs, sometimes it doesn't show up with certain lenders for one reason or another. For example I added a friend to my CapOne, Synchrony, and Chase; he only has deposit accounts with Chase and I entered his address/info (but no SSN) on the AU page. CapOne and Sync asked for similar info, or less, and they don't show up on his report (he doesn't have accounts with them). Adding AUs, YMMV.

[Anonymous]

The cards I'm thinking generally have very little activity on them, just your standard "oh maybe I should pay the cable bill on this and then pay it off for activity" kind of stuff.

She's in a little bit tougher shape then I would had hoped to be honest. Like it's fine, no debt but a car not and 400 on her cap1 card, but yeah.

My overall plan is get her to pay down cap1 card, request CLI(it's a year old, so if it gets paid down they'll give her it to her even the way things are, only at 500 bucks). And then work on maybe a discover card. Hope me adding her helps the endeavor.

I don't really plan to ever give her the cards lol but we will see. We are both in our early 30s and independent people.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately we are dealing with a 93% parent on time

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@Anonymous wrote:

What's on her CK? 

If it's a score issue you should be paying attention to FICO scores, mortgage scores in particular. Without spending much money you could just get a free Experian FICO8 score/membership from their site and see what that looks like, mortgage scores are related to that more than CK/Vantage scores.

AUs can work, kind of. Mortgage lenders want to see the person have their own accounts and may exclude or ask to remove AUs. If she has nothing negative on her report you could build it to a really high score in 12 months with info around here.

Also, when adding AUs, sometimes it doesn't show up with certain lenders for one reason or another. For example I added a friend to my CapOne, Synchrony, and Chase; he only has deposit accounts with Chase and I entered his address/info (but no SSN) on the AU page. CapOne and Sync asked for similar info, or less, and they don't show up on his report (he doesn't have accounts with them). Adding AUs, YMMV.

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Unfortunately we are dealing with a 93% pay on time....

[RSX]

i wasnt saying never give her the card - just wait until after since it is coming up in Oct

i have my son as an AU on one card - it is only to help his score, so he wont ever get the physical card

my gf is on 2 cards - one to help with her score (no card) and the other to buy groceries(she has the card)

it is just a good policy to be stringent and very clear about what the card is for

good luck to you