English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

I am in the process of paying down my credit cards. I have four cards and currently they all about 90% maxed out. If i have them all below 30% in Novemeber. How long should i wait to apply for a loan to get cheapest rate? Also, I recently opened two new accounts about 3 months old. How long before they will show a positive look on my credit score? Because i read somewhere that opening new accounts has a negative affect on credit at first.

2007-08-31 03:01:48 · 5 answers · asked by Gamergrl 1 in Business & Finance Credit

Let me clarify on these four accounts, 2 of the 4 are new accounts.

2007-08-31 03:23:19 · update #1

5 answers

Most creditors are pretty good about updating with the CRA's on a timely monthly basis. Some are pretty slow and take more than a month to update.

If the creditors you have are the ones who update regularly and the normal cycle for your payments is in the first part of the month, the creditors will probably update with the CRA's in the end of that month or the first of next month.
If the normal cycle is at the end of the month., it could be the middle or end of the next month before the creditors report the update.

If you haven't ordered your free FACTA credit reports in the last 12 months, you might order one of them so you can see what dates your creditors normally report.

Once the accounts are updated, it will reflect on your scores fairly fast.

Unless you know when the creditors update, you might wait until the very end of Dec or Jan before you apply for a loan.

As for the new accounts, if you have a fairly thick credit file - many accounts with a long history, you probably would not have taken a very hard hit from the inquiries or when the new accounts starting to report.
If you have a thin file - few accounts, short history, then you would have taken a harder hit when the inquiries and the new accounts started to report.

If you keep the new accounts in good shape you will probably see your scores back to where they were in roughly 4 to 6 months. Plus by the end of Dec/first of Jan your scores could probably be higher than they are now, or when you applied for and received the new cards, since the new cards would have a little age/history and the cards that have the current high utilization are paid down.

2007-08-31 04:10:52 · answer #1 · answered by echo 7 · 2 0

Your scores will reflect pretty quickly that you have paid down the revolving debt balances. The variable is when the creditors report the information to the credit bureaus. If they all report the reduced balances in the month following the payments, your scores would probably be affected the month after that. Another six months of low revolving debt and satisfactory payments on all other accounts will make a dramatic difference in your scores as well and increase your chances of getting favorable responses to a new credit application. During the time that you are trying to increase your score/improve your credit, make sure you pay at least the minimum due on all accounts, clear up any past deliquencies or collection accounts, and refrain from applying for new credit.

Order a copy of your credit report from each of the 3 major CRA's to verify that the information contained in the report is accurate (i.e. no fraudulent accounts, all payments accurately reported, etc.) You can request one report per year from each of the 3 bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and Transunion) at no charge. There is a website set up at http://www.annualcreditreport.com that links to all three bureaus for this purpose. The free reports will not include your credit score, you will still have to pay each bureau to see that.

Beware of other websites offering "free" credit reports. They typically require you to sign up for a recurring monthly monitoring service with a 30 day free period. The website I mentioned above does not have any such requirement.

Good Luck

2007-08-31 11:34:20 · answer #2 · answered by jrod57 2 · 0 0

If you already have 4 cards that are 90% maxed out, the 2 new ones you just opened (3 months ago) has lowered your credit score! If you have a large revolving debt, then your credit score is going to be lower. Your best bet is to either get a free credit score (provided by the US Government yearly) or you can go to any site and pay the $30 - $40 for a full report from the 3 credit bureau's.

A rule of thumb is the longer you have a credit line (regardless of whether it's a credit card, store line of credit, etc) the better it reflects on your credit score. If you have any deliquencies, you'll just have to wait that much longer to help your score.

There is no "timeline" on letting you know when your score will go up because it's based on MANY factors. If you have any other questions just ask. It's taken me 3 years to add 100 points to my credit score (670 to 770) so the best thing you can do for yourself is to stop maxing out all your cards on things you don't need.

2007-08-31 10:12:08 · answer #3 · answered by phiber101 2 · 0 1

I can't answer your questions, but I'm wondering why you opened two new accounts when you already have four credit cards and none of them are paid off. Evidently you have a habit of borrowing money, which means you are feeding banks with high interest rates instead of saving your money and paying for your purchases in cash. Evidently you are determined to be debt rich and cash poor for the rest of your life. Your economic decisions make no sense.

2007-08-31 10:09:48 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

The norm is 6 months, having too many open accounts will also negatively impact your credit score.

2007-08-31 10:08:03 · answer #5 · answered by JZ 3 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers