I have excellent credit, new wife has NO credit history. How will this affect our credit score?

Question

I am getting married in 2 weeks and we will be looking for a house to buy. I have excellent credit but my wife-to-be is a recent immigrant to the US so has absolutlety NO credit history whatsoever. How will our credit score be determined?

Answer 1

You will have to buy the house in your name only, using your score and employment history and income, since they will be looking at the previous 2 years employment history on each borrower, and if she just immigrated she has no verifiable work history to cover the past 2 years. In the mean time, you can add her to your credit cards as an authorized user to help her build a credit score after she has a social security card issued. I would recommend after a year of doing that, and assuming she has income, have her apply for a credit card on her own, or as a joint account with you to help her more.

Answer 2

A lot of the posters have excellent ideas, I'd like to add some of my own. The quickest way to build her credit would be to add her as an authorized user on oldest credit cards. The activity and payment history will be merged with her report after a short period of time. From there, I would check where you or her does her banking and open up a secured credit card for her. These are the easiest cards to get because a deposit is required to establish a line of credit in the same amount of the deposit. This way, she can start buildling credit on her own, and it also serves as a way to establish a savings or nest egg. The deposit from the secured card is usually put in a savings account that gains interest while she would build her credit, and can be increased by adding to it which would also increase her credit line. An easy way to manage it would be to make small purchases every month which can be paid off in full on time every month. Usually after a year of perfect payment history, the deposit is refunded with possible interest added and the card would become unsecured.

Another thing since you mentioned that you were going to buy an house in the immediate future, another thing that you can do is report recurring monthly payments that are not reported on traditional credit reports like rent, utlities, cable, phone, etc. as good credit with PRBC.

PRBC is a consumer reporting agency that allows the general public to report these payments into a scored report that can be used in addition to traditional reports. Under the FCRA, a PRBC report can be considered when applying for potential credit. If your credit is excelllent, you can enhance it even more by showing a clearer picture of your payment history.

Answer 3

I agree with the posters who said that you should add her as an authorized user on your credit cards. When you add her, request that they report on her credit reports. Per the FCRA, authorized users "must" be reported if the AU is the spouse .

She will gain all of the positive history of those accounts.
Don't add her to any cards that you may have had previous lates on or that carry a high utilization - unless you plan on paying the utilization down soon.

After your accounts start reporting on her credit reports, you might pull a myfico score on her to see where she stands.
Don't pull her scores from other companies, use myfico only. All others are not true scores.

Since you are planning on mortgage shopping soon, hold off on having her apply for anything until after the mortgage is signed, sealed and delivered. She will already have good credit using your history as an AU and applying for and/or receiving "new" credit will only hurt at this point.

After you purchase the home, then she might try for her own credit cards. She would still be going off of your history, so she would probably qualify for prime cards.

If you aren't comfortable with having her on your cards as an AU for a long time, you might start removing her after about a year. You might not remove her from all of the cards at one time, that will hurt her credit. Just slowly remove her at a rate of about one card every six months or so.

After adding her as an AU, there would probably be no reason to leave her off of the mortgage.

Congratulations to the both of you on your upcoming wedding. I hope the two of you have a long and happy marriage.

Answer 4

Add her to two or three of your cards that have the best payment history and the lowest carry-over balances (but are still being used monthly). This will give her instant credit. After a couple of months, have her apply for her own card. As long as the payments are made on time and the balance doesn't hover around the limit, she'll be golden.

Answer 5

As far of getting her on the title of youse, is ok, but as a co-signer of mortgage, not.
To help her to get her own credit, please get some (3 credit cards where she would get additional cards on her name). Credit card will get approved by your score, but as far you will sign her as additional card holder, than the card will run on both credit burous. Usually she needs to have at least 3 credit lines on credit, so she can get score.
Other way, she can apply secured credit cards from the banks, but it takes your cash money to put down on it.
Good luck!
PS! If you are planning to buy house, than first things first get the house and mortgage, than extra credit cards if you need. Since applying extra credit before buying house gives you extra inquiries which lowers score and lower score leads higher mortgage interest.
After year or two if her credit has a acceptable score, than close those accounts and let her get her own cards only on her credit. (You do not want to be liable for credit defaults, if there are late payments for those credit cards, with additional cards attached on it.).

Answer 6

your credit score won't be affected since your good credit has already been established. It is better to have no credit than to have bad credit so I don't think you will have a problem buying a house.

Answer 7

Just to clarify, married couples do NOT have joint credit scores. Marriage won't affect either of your scores.
What you want to do is build her score up quickly, so add her on a couple of your credit cards and let her make purchases and pay them. Meanwhile, if you need big loans, take them in your name so that you get a lower interest rate.

Answer 8

If you can finance by yourself, do that. If you need her income to make the mortgage loan work, then wait, and spend the next 6 mos to a year cleaning up her credit. Then, apply for the mortgage. To answer your question the loan application will be negatively affected if she is on there. The bank is going to look at everyone on the loan for approval.

Answer 9

your credit score will still be seperate from hers..... but i would def try to build hers up starting asap, get her a couple of cards... or the house can just go under your name, cause regardless if one has lower score then the other homeowner intrest will be higher....... build hers and try to see the different rates w/just u and then w/both of u. i used to sell cars and having no credit sometimes is just as bad as bad credit!!!!!!

Answer 10

I would leave her off your loans until she has established a credit score. I have posted a source below to help you find the right card for her no credit situation.

Congratulations on your marriage!