I know I saw a post on this a few months ago but can't seem to find it. We are just curious what a good score is, what the range is, etc. My husband graduates with his MS in july and then we are going to start looking for a house to buy.

lol, not sure on the range, but i know mine is bad! lol... i think upper 600 to more than 700 (i think) is good, and lower than 600 is bad?

I believe you need over 720. I know Dh's was in the 730s and mine was 690ish, and he could get a much better rate than I could. I was shocked our credit scores were different.... dh ended up buying the house and I simply own it because this is a community property state because my score was low enough to drag down our interest rate (ie. it was cheaper for dh to buy the house without me). Dh also technically bought our new car because of the same thing, he qualified for 0% financing and I did not.

Emily

You are given 3 scores - a high, middle and low. We were told that you need at least 670 for your middle score to get the prime rate. I think every lender has their own set of rules though. We had one company offering us 5.5% and another company wouldn't even consider us (our middle score was 660, but should hopefully go up soon since we've paid off all of our debt).

All depends on how good your broker is and what lenders they are hooked up with. My dh owns a mortgage company and of course the better your FICO score is the better rate you will get. He helps people all over the board, last week I remember him saying that he can get someone approved with 640 FICO or above. But of course it's gonna affect the rate. 700 or above is a great score and can get a great rate. HTH! : )

The right broker can get you a loan w/ a 620 average CR. At a decent interest rate too :) Shop around. Sometimes a lower score but with all OLD debt is allowed, they also want to see job longevity, letters from your landlord saying you pay the rent and your tax returns.

Okay, I am feeling better. DH's score was 740 or 760 and that was before we closed some accounts we forgot about having open still and asked to have some limits lowered. We plan to check the score in the summer again to see if the closed accounts change the score at all.
I know right off that he will have to get the loan on his own because I quit work to go to school full time and then got pregnant. A few years ago we couldn't get my name on our new car and previous to school I had perfect credit as well.

With him as the main-holder, there is no reason for a SAHM to not have her name on a car or a home. It is not helping you to build credit unless your name is on it too. His can be for the main-holder and primary, but you need to be on it too.

I hate to say it, but imagine if something ever happened to him, or your marriage? You must make sure you are protected too. I can not imagine not having my name on our home and cars.

You can have you name on your house/car without having to be on the application for the credit. I was added as an authorized user on several credit cards, and then our car loan after it went through, and it still goes to my credit report when/how they are paid. When we buy a house, DH will be apply for the mortgage, we will both be listed on the deed to the house.

And don't assume that since you are a SAHM that your credit is not as good. I was not working and was a SAHM when we applied for this mortgage. Both of us together. My credit at the time was like 705 and dh's was 690....they recommended I be listed first on the application as that is considered the primary, and whos credit score is looked at for rates and such. It got us a better rate even though I had no income.

Okay, I am feeling better. DH's score was 740 or 760 and that was before we closed some accounts we forgot about having open still and asked to have some limits lowered. We plan to check the score in the summer again to see if the closed accounts change the score at all.
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Ok I am no expert but I do watch too much Suze orman (LOL)! She says you should not do that (close accounts) and it can hurt your FICO in some cases. From my understanding it is better to have those accounts open because it shows you have $--- available vs. owed.
I am having a hard time explaning this! Any mamas help me out here??? I can explain it IRL but my brain itsn't working tonight it seems.. Perhaps I should not have replied! LOL!

as a former married SAHM and now a single SAHM, i recommend all SAHM to get credit in their names as soon as possible, not just joint accounts, but accounts that you can KEEP in the event of the unthinkable. Because I was vigilent about my credit during my marriage, it allowed me to leave the marriage and my credit score (even though i did not work) was high enough to allow me to buy a home, car or whatever when I needed to get into to now make my single life with kids better (without a job). Also, if you do ebay or have a WAH business as a SAHM, get a business license and have an accountant or outside person do your taxes each year. Mortgage companies will allow you to use that information (a letter from your accountant) to do loans esp stated income, low doc and no doc loans). The loan rates are NOT bad either if you go stated or no doc. Don't leave yourself vulnerable! Credit is soooo important especially when you DON'T WORK. You will need it one day maybe!

Ok I am no expert but I do watch too much Suze orman (LOL)! She says you should not do that (close accounts) and it can hurt your FICO in some cases. From my understanding it is better to have those accounts open because it shows you have $--- available vs. owed.
I am having a hard time explaning this! Any mamas help me out here??? I can explain it IRL but my brain itsn't working tonight it seems.. Perhaps I should not have replied! LOL!


KD is right. It all has to do with your ratios, ie. how much you owe vs. how much you could borrow. So, having CCs with high limits and low balances is a really good thing and will improve your score, you want your limits to be as high as possible. Closing accounts you haven't used in more than two years will not affect your score, but if you have used the account within the last two years, it is better for your score to keep the account open.

About having no income, Denise is right. I actually had to cosign for DH on the first car we bought together, even though I had no income, LOL. The loan company argued that DH had never had a car loan before (even though he had just bought a house), whereas I had. I thought about explaining that since I had no income, cosigning was pretty stupid, but I just let it pass, LOL.

This is so confusing! We were told to close some of the accounts. Also, when we bought a car a few years ago (2002) we could not get the loan with me on it even though I had only been out of work for 2 years and had great credit. maybe it was just the dealership. I don't know. When we traded the cra and got our new minivan we didn't even think to try and have me on it because of the last car. DH is going to talk to the bank soon anyway just to get an idea of what they would approve us for. The market where we are is nuts because of the casinos and all of their employees plus Pfizer. We want a small house with land and they get snatched fast!

First off, if you are in a community property state, such as I live in, you are legally entitled to and liable for the same stuff as your spouse. In our case, my score was about 30 points lower than DH's because I had more student loan debt than he did. It wasn't a working/income issue and it certainly wasn't an issue of me not paying my bills (since DH and I have been married since we were 20 and have had all of the same bills and I had NEVER once paid a bill late). Dh bought the house, but I am most certainly on the paperwork etc. I had to be at the closing and sign all of this stuff and such. This is really something that you have to sit down and find out from the lenders what is best to do because you can make all of the guesses you want, but you really just need to KNOW.

Secondly, I have heard the same things on closing accounts lowering your score so look into that.

Emily

I am not on the loan paperwork, but I am on the house paperwork, if that makes any sense. When we bought our house, I had student loans and a car loan, so we didn't want those debts taken into consideration and we left my name off the loan.

The way the closing attorney explained it to us was that if DH left me I was entitled to half the house (community property), but that if he defaulted on the loan, it would not affect my score and they would not come after me for the money. Kind of like having my cake and eating it too, huh? LOL

I am not on the loan paperwork, but I am on the house paperwork, if that makes any sense. When we bought our house, I had student loans and a car loan, so we didn't want those debts taken into consideration and we left my name off the loan.

The way the closing attorney explained it to us was that if DH left me I was entitled to half the house (community property), but that if he defaulted on the loan, it would not affect my score and they would not come after me for the money. Kind of like having my cake and eating it too, huh? LOL

LOL You did luck out! In my case most of the paperwork I was signing was stating that if Dh did default, I WOULD be liable. This actually reminds me, I used to work with a girl whose DH ran up a bunch of bills and such and she got held liable for half of them after their divorce. He had credit and such she didn't even know about! She was VERY bitter toward her ex to say the very least.

Emily

Closing old accounts (as long as they are reporting positively) can lower your score because 1/3 of your credit score is credit history. So if you have many older accounts that are open but positive it will give you a better credit history. If you close the old ones then you could possibly delete much of your old credit history making your credit history not as long and therefore not as good. I hope I am not confusing you, lol. I have been researching credit reports and such for many months trying to improve our scores. I have gotten dh's from the low 500's up to barely over 600 now so I think I am doing pretty good. We too want to buy a house.

Okay, I am going to tel DH about the closing accounts thing. It makes more sense now.

i had just turned 20 when i bought my house. i have great credit (mid 800s) but they told me i didn't have ENOUGH credit. i also didn't have $20,000 for a nice down payment. i had a hard time trying to find someone to give me a loan, and i was pressed for time. i bought it by myself, my so had no credit. i have made him an authorized user on one of my credit cards to start building his credit, and we plan to move within the next 5 to 10 years. hopefully he will have enough credit by then so we can buy it together. but i had a very hard time, i had mortgage companys telling me i would never find something in my price range, and i would never get a loan from anyone! i showed them huh! if you plan to buy a house, be prepared to be stressed. i was ready to rip out my hair by the time it was over! my mortgage broker was a d*ck, and if i could have gone through someone else i would have. he actually asked me if i was serious the first time i met with him. he said i needed to let him know if i was just wasting his time. uhhhhh i hate him! anyway. if you don't like the people you are dealing with, find someone else. like i said i was pressed for time, it was actually a last minute deal. and i got really lucky, i found my house the 2nd day it was on the market and had a contract within a week. anyway, i'm rambling, but i was told not to make any big financial changes before you try to buy a house. like don't go buy a car so you have more credit, ykwim? they say it just makes it look worse. hth!

I wish we had the money for big financial changes! We just had to shell out thousands for the last of DH's grad school classes and project but thankfully we have no loans for that and it will be an extra $7000 a year for house payments.