I've been regulary visiting various pre-qual websites for the last month or two, even though I'm gardening and have no intention of applying for anything new until 2020. I figure it's a good way to get a measure of my credit health. For the first time ever, yesterday the Amex prequal site offered me a Gold and a Green card - pretty cool! Tempting, but didn't take either one.
CapitalOne also pre-qual'd me for an auto refinance at 6% on my Kia (which is currently financed at 10%). That one was VERY difficult to turn down, because I do really want to refinance that car, but I just can't afford any more inquiries or new accounts right now, since I still feel like I'm skating on thin ice with Chase.
I'm hoping these pre-quals keep getting better and better as the months go by, so I can ultimately refi some stuff next year at much lower rates.
Total Loan Balance: $43k / $65k
Total SL: $78k
@Remedios wrote:I dont think you need to wait 6 months to attempt car refinance
While Chase can be neurotic at times, I think in your case 3 months later is just fine
If you accept Cap One refinance, it's a single inquiry on each bureau, it's not like you'll get 15
Also, look into refinance through CU. No need to bleed money forever because of Chase.
Thanks! I may try to do the refi in September, then. That's when the multitude of inquiries from the initial car purchase will be a year old, and also I'm hoping my scores will be closer to 700 by then, so maybe I'll get better rates by holding out til then.
@Remedios wrote:
Is there anything else you can do about derogs (saw that in your sig) or is done deal now?
I've written Good Will letters for all of them, but I ultimately decided not to send them off for the time being. I would need to get all 8 of them removed before it would really benefit my scores at all, and if I only succeed in getting some (not all) of them removed then it might actually hurt my scores by dragging down my credit age.
Since my scores have been improving pretty steadily lately, and I've been getting approvals and preapprovals for some pretty good stuff already, I decided it isn't worth stressing out about the old derogs at this point.
Thank you!
Well I think I've changed my mind about not sending the goodwill letters. After crunching the numbers, it doesn't make sense not to try my luck with them.
My AAoA is 5.2 years, with 27 accounts on my reports.
8 of those accounts are bad, and those have an average age of 6.0 years.
So that means that if I got ALL of them removed, my AAoA would only drop from 5.2 years to 4.8 years.
Even in the worst case scenario, where I only get the oldest bad accounts deleted and I can't get a couple of the youngest ones deleted, my AAoA only drops to like 4.6 years.
So I don't think the "risk" is nearly as severe as I originally thought. Luckily I saved all my Good Will letters that I typed up, I think next week I'll fire off the first batch and see what happens.
In other news, my TU Fico 8 hit 675 today 
I'm getting closer to "prime" credit territory!
Good luck! I thought the same thing with goodwill letters and came to the same conclusion.
Starting Score: 494 503 521
Good luck. I enjoy reading your posts since your scenario matches mine in so many ways.
I too have some old lines that would probably benefit from goodwill deletion. I am where you were however: the benefits do not outway the negatives (time and trouble mostly). Especially since I have tried in the past to remove them.
However, bear in mind, disregarding the AAoA hit, how confident are you that some of those old items are really having on your score? A 6 year negative is so different from a 6 month negative. Especially, when you consider the negative that matters MOST is the one that you get removed LAST. Thats where the time value question comes in.
