Stevie P

Hi, I'm wondering when my wife a USC and I move permanently to the states, if we need to at some point will I be eligible to get a loan for anything ?
You know like for a car or whatever.
My credit rating is perfect here in the UK, but will that mean anything once we have moved to the US ?

petitefrancaise

Your UK credit rating means nothing here in the USA. You ae starting all over again. Maybe do a search on this? It's probably in the wiki section too.

What about your USC wife? She's probably got a credit score.

Car? think about international autosource/expatride and doing it in advance of leaving the UK.

tom169

As PF said you won't have one in the US. When I was car shopping Nissan offered no credit check car loans provided you earn $80k or more.

That said, I don't advise any sort of financing.

petitefrancaise

what was the interest rate like?

Financing/credit cards is the way to build credit history. Not sure why you would not advise it.

Stevie P

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with my wife's credit, it was just my credit in general, and wondering where I stood.
Never heard of autosource or expatride, I'll look into them, thanks.

Pulaski

As PF and Tom said, you don't exist, and indeed cannot exist (for US credit score purposes) until you have an SSN.

I recommend International Autosource - I used them myself and while they might sound a bit "odd", in fact their bread and butter business is selling cars to US military personnel, so they are entirely legit and totally above board.

malch

If buying a new car, the dealers frequently offer great promotional rates as low as 2 or 3%. But some of the smaller used car outfits are unscrupulous and engage in all manner of scams. Great care is recommended.

But, as you say, timely loan payments to a reputable lender will have a large and positive impact on your credit score.

malch

And when you do, Equifax will leak all of your info to crooks. Grrrrrr, still seething!

mrken30

If you are earning a decent salary and can prove long term employment in you area of work, you should be able to get 3% ish on a car under 5 years old. A bit higher for an older car.

Also you can build up your credit score quite quickly. It should be in the mid 700's within a year or so. Unless you miss payments.

Also if you wife has old credit cards, get her to put you on as a named user.

tom169

I can't remember the interest rate. It's just what the guy said when trying to get me to buy one.

Because financing cars is crippling the country. Average payments are now over $500 p/m.

I couldn't imagine us having $1000 p/m car payments even with good jobs to support it.

Leases are even worse in how the payments are structured.

Credit cards are fine for most folk who know how to pay them off entirely each month. However, there has been research that shows the brain spends more on credit card than it would on debit card.

Pulaski

Which is why I am commuting in a car that is almost 15 years old and has been to the moon and is nearly half way back. It does the job, and I have no car payment.

robin1234

Furthermore many people carry on with this behaviour when they are coming up to, and pass, normal retirement age. So they think $300, $600 per month on car payments is a normal expenditure and so naturally, come to the conclusion that they can never retire. SS plus income from their retirement accounts is never going to be enough to live on ...

Pulaski

If only they had put their monthly car payment in their 401k/ 403b when they were younger.

robin1234

Well I agree, but I do understand why people might continue to finance a car when younger. But surely, when retirement gets closer, it's perfectly obvious that it would make sense to stop using credit!

Pulaski

But what would happen to their credit score?