Building a mortgage by purchasing a cellphone?

w20031424 · ‎04-25-2013

I don't have any recent plan to buy a car or house. And I want to "diversity" my debt so the FICO can improve a bit. Can I take a mortgage of a cellphone or a laptop and have it reported to credit burea? Thank you.

InvincibleSummer3 · ‎04-25-2013

A mortgage is specific to a house purchase; you could look at getting an installment loan of some sort. A cell phone or laptop usually ends up being reported as a revolver in my experience, though.

llecs · ‎04-25-2013

Do you mean installment loan? A mortgage is a debt secured by real estate like a home or land.

Do you have any loans reporting (e.g. student loans, paid off car loans, personal loans, etc.)? If so, you already have that factored into your mix of credit. If not, IMO, I wouldn't get into debt just to have a loan report. The new TL would likely hurt more in the interim. It wouldn't make sense to get a loan on a cellphone and certainly I doubt if there are any lenders out there. I'm not even sure if you can get a loan on a computer anymore. Back in the day installment loans were offered, but now it's more revolving credit via a store card or CC. Technology changes so much that by the time a few months have passed the value is essentially gone and there's no way to secure that.

I wouldn't recommend paying interest on your own money, but if you wanted a loan put a couple of thousand into a CD or savings. Some banks will offer secured loans based on that. But again, I don't see any FICO improvement by doing so if you already have credit.

ETA....I'm a very slow typer.

w20031424 · ‎04-26-2013

@llecs wrote:
Do you mean installment loan? A mortgage is a debt secured by real estate like a home or land.

Do you have any loans reporting (e.g. student loans, paid off car loans, personal loans, etc.)? If so, you already have that factored into your mix of credit. If not, IMO, I wouldn't get into debt just to have a loan report. The new TL would likely hurt more in the interim. It wouldn't make sense to get a loan on a cellphone and certainly I doubt if there are any lenders out there. I'm not even sure if you can get a loan on a computer anymore. Back in the day installment loans were offered, but now it's more revolving credit via a store card or CC. Technology changes so much that by the time a few months have passed the value is essentially gone and there's no way to secure that.

I wouldn't recommend paying interest on your own money, but if you wanted a loan put a couple of thousand into a CD or savings. Some banks will offer secured loans based on that. But again, I don't see any FICO improvement by doing so if you already have credit.

ETA....I'm a very slow typer.

Thanks. Maybe I'll just get an auto loan with 3% APR.