Should I do a 2nd secured personal loan?

[Anonymous]

So I opened a secured personal loan as part of my rebuild and it gave me a 15 point increase for TU and EQ but something I didn't find out until a 45 days after I opened it is that the CU I did it with does not report to Experian which is where I actually need the most work it's my lowest score and a lot of creditors use them.

So I'm wondering should I do another secured personal loan to help my Experian or not?

Pros and Cons

[Anonymous]

Bump

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:
So I opened a secured personal loan as part of my rebuild and it gave me a 15 point increase for TU and EQ but something I didn't find out until a 45 days after I opened it is that the CU I did it with does not report to Experian which is where I actually need the most work it's my lowest score and a lot of creditors use them.

So I'm wondering should I do another secured personal loan to help my Experian or not?

Pros and Cons

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I would wait. I have never had anything that didn't report to all 3 bureaus.

[Anonymous]

I contacted the credit union and they said they do not pay to report to Experian only to TU and EQ so...?

[Anonymous]

Hey Matt.  How much was your personal loan for?  And of that how do you currently owe?

Also, is your personal loan the only open installment loan you have?  No auto loan, student loan, mortgage, etc?

[Anonymous]

The secured PL was for $600 at 24 month term. I owe $525 of that currently.

If I did another one it'd be for $500 at 12 months with a different CU.

I do have student loans but they're deferred for the next 18 months while I'm in school so the bureas show them as closed status while in deferment. Which is why I think I got a 15 point boost after this one was added to 2/3 reports.

[Anonymous]

What you should be aiming for is a personal loan for which you can

(a) Pay off most of the balance very early in the life of the loan, while

(b) Still keeping the loan open for a long time (e.g. five years)

Here is some guidance that explains how all this works, why paying it down early is best, why keeping it open a long time is best, etc.  It also gives you a well tested lender and step by step guidance for how to get that loan.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Adding-an-installment-loan-the-Share-Secu...

Read the first two posts, and that should give you the tools for deciding whether you want to pursue it further.  If you do, read the instructions in the third post.

The estimated scoring advantage is typically a total of 30-35 extra points (but that includes the 15 you already got).

[Anonymous]

Do you know whether your current personal loan involved a hard inquiry?  The lender we recomend only does a soft pull.

[Anonymous]

Okay I'll look through that thanks! And yes the first one was a HP on TU

[CreditMagic7]

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@Anonymous wrote:

What you should be aiming for is a personal loan for which you can

(a) Pay off most of the balance very early in the life of the loan, while

(b) Still keeping the loan open for a long time (e.g. five years)

Here is some guidance that explains how all this works, why paying it down early is best, why keeping it open a long time is best, etc.  It also gives you a well tested lender and step by step guidance for how to get that loan.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Adding-an-installment-loan-the-Share-Secu...

Read the first two posts, and that should give you the tools for deciding whether you want to pursue it further.  If you do, read the instructions in the third post.

The estimated scoring advantage is typically a total of 30-35 extra points (but that includes the 15 you already got).

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^This

And it really DOES make a difference!