First FICO scores! (I'm in the 700 club)

[Anonymous]

Well it's been 6 months and my scores finally in.

Experian: 721
Equifax: 726
Transunion: 732

My Experian auto 8 score is 693

AAoA: 6 months
Number of positive tradelines: 2
Utilization rate: 1%
Number of hard inquiries: 8 across the board

My two active tradelines are both revolving lines of credit/CCs. I have a secured Discover card and a Capital One QS. I started out with a Platinum but upgraded to a no annual fee QuickSilver.

Right now my main and only financial goal is to finance a car. The car I want is a 2018 Honda Accord Sport.

Now that I have my scores, what should my next move be? How much longer should I wait before I try to obtain financing again?

I tried out Capital One's "auto navigator" out of curiosity but was denied. Which is what I expected would happen considering how young/thin my file is.

I was thinking about getting a Self Lender loan to add positive loan history to my thin file. It just seems like the right direction to go in.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Congrats on being in the 700 club. You can definitley add some extra points by getting a self lender account since you don't have any open installment accounts.

[Rebuild2019]

Congrats on your progress @Hypnagogia

[LakeLife]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Congrats on being in the 700 club. You can definitley add some extra points by getting a self lender account since you don't have any open installment accounts.

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Agree with this, and I think patience is in order as well.  As you know, scores are not the entire credit profile, and I think you need to let some of those hard inquiries work their way off your report.  It won't hurt for your AAoA to gain a little age as well.  Good luck and congrats on your hard work so far!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Well it's been 6 months and my scores finally in.

Experian: 721
Equifax: 726
Transunion: 732

My Experian auto 8 score is 693

AAoA: 6 months
Number of positive tradelines: 2
Utilization rate: 1%
Number of hard inquiries: 8 across the board

My two active tradelines are both revolving lines of credit/CCs. I have a secured Discover card and a Capital One QS. I started out with a Platinum but upgraded to a no annual fee QuickSilver.

Right now my main and only financial goal is to finance a car. The car I want is a 2018 Honda Accord Sport.

Now that I have my scores, what should my next move be? How much longer should I wait before I try to obtain financing again?

I tried out Capital One's "auto navigator" out of curiosity but was denied. Which is what I expected would happen considering how young/thin my file is.

I was thinking about getting a Self Lender loan to add positive loan history to my thin file. It just seems like the right direction to go in.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

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Get a Self Lender loan for $500 right now. Or a share secure loan from a credit union.

Pay that loan down to $40 (8.00% remaining on $500) in June. Your credit scores in July will see a big boost from that low installment loan utilization plus reaching 1 year Age of Oldest Account / Age of Youngest Account.

@Birdman7 found that installment loans do not reset AoYA back to 0, but any new credit cards definitely will.

When that loan closes it will cause your FICO 8 scores to drop a lot! So you would have to be ready to apply for auto financing in July right after the credit reports are updated. This is very important to remember!

Thanks for the data with 2 cards at 6 months! I've been wondering how much a closed installment loan (SSL from a credit union) is helping my scores, but there's not a lot of data from people with only 2 cards.

My EX Auto 8 went from 683 at AoOA 1yr1mo / AoYA 1mo to 715 at AoOA 1yr6mo / AoYA 6mo. That was with 1 year of share secure loan history followed by 2 cards reporting at once. Both cards had a balance at 4% utilization.

The following month, AZEO (1of2) didn't help EX Auto 8, but it helped a lot with EQ Auto 8 (+19) and TU Auto 8 (+15).

[kilroy8]

They want some history and they want you to have the income to afford the payments. Your score numbers are fine, get the other things lined up and then boost with SSL.