[PeterCrowl]

I presume many here are financing their purchase.

I'd like to mention a few things to be careful of. This is only if you might be trying to buy or re-finance a house in the future. If you're not - then this stuff doesn't matter as much - just in situations where your credit score matters.

1: Don't allow your credit report to be pulled until you're ready to buy. Same applies to any financed purchases. Too many inquiries can lower your credit score which in turn can cause you to pay higher interest rates or not get approved at all if you're on the edge.


2: In a post on one of the other boards here, someone said that they'd just bought their E and had 2 credit cards to spend on mods.
Cool.
Just don't max out a card if you intent to carry the balance. Besides the obvious interest ding, carrying a credit card balance over 1/2 the limit - and certainly maxing them out will lower your score. The best thing you can do for yourself is never go over 1/2 of the limit and show a good healthy payback stream. It's better to have 3 cards with $2000 limits charged to $1000 each than maxing one and 1/2ing another.

Just some info. Perhaps it'll help somebody here to avoid problems and build a strong credit score.

Peter

 

[Seanu]

Good points but I think a little clarification might be helpful. The law was recently changed that requires the credit bureaus to allow all inquiries of the same type within thirty days to count as 1, in order to allow consumers to be able to shop rates without penalty.

A few other pointers, keep your oldest credit card account open as forever as long as there is no fee. Age of accounts helps a lot especially for the younger borrower. Make sure you max out each card at least once, many CC companies report your highest used balance as your limit, you obviously want to pay it down asap. But its good to do in place of cash if you are going to make a large purchase. Then use balance transfers( if no fee) to flip it through your other cards.

A good article on this was in this months Kiplingers or Smart money magazine, sorry i cant remember which is which.

 

[StLouisPenguin]

Thank you for the info on the new changes, I didn't realize that they had changed that reporting method to accomidate the intelligent shopper....we applied 3 times to get the lowest rate possible for our car loan for the E.

I had been worried about the points lost for the car loan process, esp since we will be purchasing a home this time next year.

You were very helpful!

 

[Hawaiian E]

Also, teach your kids about good credit and how to use a card wisely. It is also good to help your kids develop good credit by getting them a card with their own name on it (when old enough), and use it to make purchases that they CAN pay back (take their cash when they use their card).