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Rebuilding credit - part deux
Drez
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm working on becoming a real boy and according to my fairy godmother that means getting my credit score way up.
The biggest thing hurting me now is charge off that was finally resolved last year.
HOWEVER!
I applied for a few credit cards and I'm getting some cards. So I'm getting up there.
I have two questions:
1) If I want to lease a car, will credit impact my ability to actually lease one? Like, could I be outright denied?
2) Is utilization a monthly thing? Like if I have 10% utilization this month, 90% next month, and 10% the month after - my credit will look like shit next month but should be okay the month after, right? Lenders and credit bureaus on't really analyze "utilization history" from what I can tell. True?
The biggest thing hurting me now is charge off that was finally resolved last year.
HOWEVER!
I applied for a few credit cards and I'm getting some cards. So I'm getting up there.
I have two questions:
1) If I want to lease a car, will credit impact my ability to actually lease one? Like, could I be outright denied?
2) Is utilization a monthly thing? Like if I have 10% utilization this month, 90% next month, and 10% the month after - my credit will look like shit next month but should be okay the month after, right? Lenders and credit bureaus on't really analyze "utilization history" from what I can tell. True?
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2) it does affect it a bit yeah, for instance if you pay off a loan your utilization will go up, and thus, your credit may dive
Credit is a HUGE thing for leasing cars, unless you've got an 800 credit rating, it's almost always better to own, and buy certified used instead. This way you get an okay warranty but don't take a dive on the "just drove off the lot" price.
2) yes its monthly-ish. 30 days after you bring it back down to 10%, then nobody will know what ever happened, or at least they wont care
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
I wouldn't go after a lease unless I had 700+ raiting because you're just going to get raked across the coals. Having a steady income and long employment history is usually good enough, though, but you're going to be getting that at a premium. And some of the dealerships are doing away with a lot of the service in leases too, which defeats the whole point.
If you only need a car for two years, etc, etc
It takes a while for buying even a used car to "pay"
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Like Jasconius says, if you get a good special offer lease payment that's really low, and you don't drive much so aren't going to go over the mileage limits (typically 10-12k/year) then a 2 or 3 year lease might be a good option if you don't know that you'll need a car long term.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Let's say you utilize 75% of one card with a $2,000 limit. The closing date comes and all transactions have gone from pending to processed so it's a true 75% utilization.
The month closes and you get your statement showing a balance of $1,500 and your minimum payment due in 25 days.
Let's say I pay $1400 off before the billing due date.
Will my utilization likely show 75% or 5% or is it indeterminable because different lenders report utilization differently?
If I'm understanding correctly, there's some lag time before utilization shows. The less the better too. So it wouldn't show any utilization until next billing cycle (after the due date).
As for the car: zip cars and rentals are your best options I think.
You still have to have insurance and all that with a lease. So, if you want to avoid all that, and definitely do not want to buy a car, I'd say rent as needed.
I don't think a straight answer to this exists, unless you can talk to someone at one of the CRAs who definitively knows how everything is calculated. While there are some solid rules of thumb, I'm convinced some of the equation is purposefully obfuscated or just fucking voodoo.
I've had active credit monitoring for over 4 years now, which gives me weekly updates on whether there has been activity detected that "could" affect my credit, and my Equifax FICO score updated regularly (but not necessarily on a monthly or periodic basis), so I'll relate what my experiences have been and make of it what you will.
My largest positive score change (about 40 points) was when "the amount of debt I have" went from "good" to "very good" (these are the descriptors used when I drill down into my credit monitoring to get explanations of why my score is what it is). This seemed completely arbitrary to me as the amount of debt I had did not significantly change. The month before I was carrying $150K+ in mortgage debt and around $11K in revolving credit used, and after the change I was carrying a few hundred less in mortgage debt and maybe $600 less in revolving credit used. No other changes. No late pays dropping off my credit history. No new lines of credit. No closing of lines of credit. No declines to extend credit.
I do try to make sure my balances on revolving lines of credit are lower than the previous month balance before they are due (4th and 5th off the month are my due dates for CCs), but as far as I can tell the score moves up or down independent of the closing date. I have movements any day of the months from 1st to 30th. I'd think that the CC companies would automate notification of CRAs, like maybe that 1st week after the close of the statement, but I regularly see balance change notifications on my credit monitoring that are not related to the due dates of the CCs.
A couple years back I sold a car and put $3K to a credit card balance to see how it affected my credit. No change for 5 months
You can try gaming the score, but I've found no way to time payments such as to have positive effects to scoring. Large increases in balances have a near immediate negative effect on credit scoring, but immediate resolution of the balance (bringing it back up to what it was before) does not necessarily have immediate reversal to original credit score. It seems to me you can quickly fuck your credit score, but you cannot quickly improve it. And sometimes you can get significant credit score improvement that does not appear to be linked to recent credit activity.
Don't buy a car in NYC if you don't have to. If family trips can be handled via car rental then that would be a way better method.
I got a new credit card last month and i'm still not seeing it show up in my CreditKarma profile. i don't know how close that is to my actual credit report though...
It was off by more than 100 points for me last time I got my "real" report.
CK seems to be highly geared toward youth with limited to no credit history. If you look at my credit without historical context, I look like a bum. When you see that I've paid off 4 cars and never been late on anything ever, I am substantially less of a bum, and carrying credit card debt does not quite weigh things down as much.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
My real FICO went up a bit.
Shit be cray.
Frankly, in your situation I'd probably use a Zipcar type arrangement until it was clear that buying a car would be cheaper. Buying a car is a pretty big commitment, whereas Zipcar is not.
How are you guys getting your FICO score? i'm curious as to what my real score is, but i don't care to spend any money to find out. is it only Discover cards that give that to you each month?