The various industries seem pretty slow to move credit models as well, so I wouldn’t count on any lender using FICO 9 any time soon. I certainly wouldn’t pay for rental reporting at this point.
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OK, a bit of a humble brag. Sorry 
. Though really all my high score means is I’m older than I want to be.
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Yep. I was going to point that out in my reply but I didn’t want you to think I was 
ing on your comment. 
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I’m actually wondering if ‘listing your rent’ on your credit will help those in the mid 600s
With most lenders, no it won’t help because it’s not scored in the model they are using.
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So basically it’s a way to squeeze a bit of money out of renters?
Mostly a useless service you can maybe get for free. If all scoring systems used it it could be a useful way to build credit.
As it stands though it’s not worth the money since FICO 9 doesn’t seem to be widely used yet.
I don’t pay for the reporting. It’s a free service with my mega rental mgmt (Progress Residential.)
I’ve always been a cash guy. Dad was a depression Era, WW2 vet who only believed in a mortgage, didn’t teach the little ones about the advantages of responsible credit building. I’ve bought 3 homes without serious consideration of my credit score (and paid through the nose on interest) but it wasn’t until I was chided by my realtor friend when looking for a house a few years ago, to make a serious effort to build my credit score.
Well, part of that effort was the rental payment reporting. I was doing a few other things and my score has been climbing so I really didn’t know where to give credit. (Pun intended.)
That aspect will be a moot point in another month anyway, so the more pertinent question may be: To pay off the Caddy or not to pay off the Caddy? It’s currently the only installment loan I (we) have.
Paying off the caddy might help you, but that’s why I pointed you to CreditKarma.
All you said that it was junk but you didn’t mention any of the 6 boxes and which ones were in the bad area.
If it is Payment History? You are screwed. Is it in Credit Card Use? Hard Inquiries?
If none of those, then it’s your BK7,. and I’m really surprised that you got a loan for the Caddy with that kind of credit.
Kredit Carmahaha is garbage, that’s what I call it Kredit Carmahaha.
That Vantage Score they provide is virtually unused by companies to evaluate a consumer’s creditworthiness or to manage their account.
Kredit Carmahaha’s analysis on a score no one uses has limited utility.
These are so close to meaningless I often actually call them meaningless, which is barely an exaggeration. And often it isn’t an exaggeration at all.
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One of the head scratchers of FICO 9 is that it doesn’t penalize a consumer for accounts that were sent to collections but subsequently repaid in full.
So it looks at your credit history and then decides to ignore some of the uglier (or ugliest) parts of it.
Reflexively that makes zero sense.
You might think, “The consumer should get credit for doing the right thing.” But whatever the reason for the loss and subsequent repayment, recovering bad debts through collection agencies is very expensive, as are the activities that occur prior (imagine how much it costs to run an internal collections department with hundreds or thousands of employees).
The reason for risk-based pricing is that consumers who don’t pay (regardless of the reason) cost a lot more to service, and the amount of money that ends up being uncollectable is dramatic.
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I have Experian, Geico, and Capital One credit monitoring. They all have their opinion as to why my score is what it is and they all basically say the same thing which is BK and not enough history. All but two of 7 pulls are for the car loan. One is a recent credit card through my bank and the other was applying for a mortgage that falls off this month, and I believe Fair Isaac would consider this only 2 credit requests.
The best insight I’ve gotten was a remark from a finance guy when we were caddy shopping who when referring to our score said it could be a strong 700 or a weak 700.
That was interesting and at first I thought strong? Weak? Isn’t that what the darn score number is supposed to tell? But the more I’ve delved into the more it makes sense.
I’m sure my 8 1/2 year old bk had some effect but likely not as much as I’ve only been using credit for the past 1.5 to 2 years.
If I was a lender it wouldn’t matter much to me that there was a bankruptcy over 8 years ago with no adverse activity since. It WOULD concern me that there’s no long-term consistent credit usage pattern. However the only thing I have control over ATM is my DTI. The rest is up to time with responsible credit usage.
One thing I did that helped me was getting bigger limits on my cards. Even though I paid in full every month, my spending was too high a percentage of the combined limits. If I knew I was going to get a pull, I would keep my balances artificially low paying them off more than once a month.
And of course setting autopay for everything as I would chronically forget a bill from time to time.
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My friend had a BK7, in year 8-9 he couldn’t get a car loan (from new car dealers that he wanted to drive), 1 month after year 10 (aka 121months), poof he’s driving around in a 60k car. He had a 720+ after year 7.
BTW he was making $100k / yr since year 6.
So I believe BK7 is really hurting the overall picture and maybe not the score.
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Great idea! I’m going to ask my CC companies for a credit increase.
My score will fluctuate 20 points if there’s a significant balance on my cards when they read/ report it, so I pay them all to 0 on the 13th and 28th because they seem to be read on the first and 15th or at least my experience has been that is when the numbers can change radically. Since doing that my score has settled into a slow tick upwards. I had auto pay but it was actually getting in the way of my “credit maintenance” lol.
Is this recent history? I’m glad I don’t have your confidence or we’d never attempted.
Back in Nov the caddy dealership did 5 pulls: them, BoA, Ally, Capital One, and SunTrust. The banks said no. Capital One and Ally said yes w Ally at 6.5% which got us out the door. A week later we refi’d with Suncoast CU at 2.75% shedding about $2,600 in interest payments over 3 years. AND… We got a $4,000 Visa credit card to go with our new loan.
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Definitely do this.
One of the benefits of paying by credit card is the float.
If your limits are sufficient, there’s no reason to pay before the statement closes and the payment is due ~25 days later.
It’s also inconvenient to pay 2x a month.
There are some exceptions (like US Bank that reports your balance as of month-end), but most cards report your statement balance.
It’s a minor inconvenience though it keeps me plugged into the credit building process, and keeps my score from fluctuating as explained above. When I’m settled in (750 Fico, house, this car lease,) I’ll pull back a bit.
I’ve got 500 sitting in a CU that I used for a 12 mo credit builder loan that got me about 20 points, that I’m trying to figure what to do with. At this stage I don’t think rolling it back into another small credit builder loan will help.
This alone has no practical value.
Your score only matters at the moment you apply for something.
In fact, you don’t even have a score until one is generated on demand for a specific purpose.
I guess Google was following this conversation as I’m being solicited with new CC offers. I’m sure it’s better to increase current limits than to open new accounts, but 2-3 months out, is that a viable option?