Real Estate Investor · Pryor, OK · Member since 2015 · 46 posts · 12 votes
I don't know a lot about scores. My lowest credit score usually is in 750's +
In the past six weeks I picked up three new credit cards and some the month before.
I have been searching for bargain properties. Thought I would get an extra half dozen credit cards on hand with 0% for 18 months
Thinking I could cover any major calamity with them and maybe get a cheap property or two using them and still stay under 25% usage before getting a loan.
Currently My credit utilization is 11%,
Just hit with 7 inquiries from getting credit cards
Probably in about two years they would go up a little bit because of the time since having the hard inquiries. It will take longer for it to go up substantially because your average age of credit availability has probably gone down significantly. Also, a high percentage of utilization of one card is bad as well. Not just the high utilization of your overall credit availability. Of course, your intention is probably to max them out or come close to it by using them for your deals, so, as long as you pay them down quickly I don't believe it would have any long-term effect to use them as much as you need to for deals. If there are any cards with less than ideal terms and conditions and that have a lower availability then what is reasonably useful for your purposes, you may consider closing the accounts of those which are the youngest to at least boost your average age of credit by a little bit.
Indeed. I try to get the biggest bang for my buck(the largest credit limit possible) on one advance in credit and do it rarely so as to make it worth the ding I'm getting. The best way I've found is to try to get my current creditors to increase my limits rather than open new lines whenever possible because it increases my limits without decreasing my average age of credit.
I do know it takes 2 years before inquiries expire, and we were also told that moving does affect it, maybe length of time at residence is a factor. We learned the hard way not to listen when, for example, your loan officer says it's best to run your credit again after 90 days to keep your pre-approval active when we didn't find what we were looking for in the first 90-day window, that it counts as separate inquiries, even though we hadn't purchased anything and it technically was for the same purchase goal. It did take over 2 years to raise our score back up, and we are now extremely cautious about any new credit inquiries.
Just yesterday I heard about something called rapid rescore. I don't know if this is helpful to your situation, but here's an article I found about it on the CreditCards.com website. http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/rapid-...
I haven't had a reason to put it into practice yet, but if you do, please let me know how it works out.
Loading up on credit cards was something an investor who went bankrupt recommended to me. I should have known better.
But I have to say they did well in RE for along time and I thought I could learn a little from them.
A few months ago I put a little over 8k on a card ,the same person told me that if I had two or more cards from same bank it wouldn't hurt me they would average out both limits
Well that didn't pan out so well ,showed up as 40+% on one card
When I saw that, I jpaid it off ,and score went right back up
So now I need to learn ins and outs of the credit game before I dig a deeper hole to climb out of! LOL
I've done the same things and I didn't get a big hit on my inquiries. Were all your inquires within a 14 day time period? As long as they are clumped together and of the same type of inquiry it should count as only 1 hit. You can dispute this with the credit companies if not.
I have also increased limits and picked up more cards over time to keep my usage rate low compared to what I've got available.
I got the seven new cards in about a two month period
and for got to mention I had paid off a loan from a credit union.
I was told at the credit union (I've been with over 20 years )that home, auto and student loans inquiries are seen differently than ones for credit cards
If you get a quantity that the risk level goes way up and lots of peeps end up bankrupt.
After telling me this I was asked if I was interested in getting a limit increase on the cards we have with them. LOL that I was good with them and they would be happy to help me in anyway.
Good news is my lowest score is back to 748
I ran across almost 300 hundred acres I was thinking about and the credit union "who would be happy to help me " only wants a arm and a leg down , and of course your first born!!!
The inquiries won't hurt you too bad. You get 7-8 in 12 months before it negatively affects you anyway. Also, inquiries of similar security in a 2 week period are weighed less severe.
What probably hurt you most is all the new account history like @Daniel Mohnkern mentioned. Your average age of credit history dropped significantly.
Go to creditboards dot com. Search for 'bumpage' or b*
This will detail the strategy Richard Dunlop alludes to above.
It won't get you all the way back, and it will only help for inquiries on Transunion and maybe Equifax (Experian inqs cannot be bumped.) And it won't get you all the way back. But you could recover may 20 points.
OP is looking to finance property purchase on credit cards.
I have collateral. Fully rented owned free and clear and the bank will not lend me a dime because my credit score is not at least 680 ( I've never needed to borrow).
If Necessary I can use credit cards that have 0% interest for 18 to 22 months Or money I have on hand to buy or repair properties without having to wait for a loan, sometimes you have to move fast and can't play around.
I could purchase and fix a place during that time frame and then get a loan.