Brigette

Her credit will help you if she co-signs for you say on a credit card or on a auto loan. I do not recommend doing that for a house unless you are married. Once you have a credit card and have good payments you should be fine. Same thing with an auto loan. IF you make your monthly payments on time, this will help in building your credit

Bob

There's a big wiki entry and a hundred threads on this issue...

AmEx, global transfer if you already have a card is your best way to get a head start on US credit and then it's just a matter of time.

Get a mortgage and car loan, pay most of them off, leave a small minimal balance that you pay off over 12 months.

You don't need to keep a balance on the cards you have, you just need to show you can pay them off on time, over time....but score alone isn't important, it's the varied and more important, length of history, which is why you want a car loan etc.

fatbrit

This works well. Put at least 50% down to get the loan -- first-time buyer with a crazy rate. With no PPP, make your first payment to kill the crazy interest pay-out, while taking into account you want to make at least 6 payments and those payments must be at least the minimum payment amount. You'll need a loan calculator and spreadsheet to work out the figures to minimize your interest.


There are no bonus points for paying interest, so pay off in full. Always keep your balance below 20% of your credit limit to maximize score.

RayM

Bob, I have an MBNA Amex card. Can I transfer that to the US? or does it need to be a card direct with Amex? If it does, is is too late to get an Amex card in the UK and transfer it to the US? I'll be moving in late Sept.

Bob

Needs to be a direct AmEx card I believe.

MBNA don't exist anymore since BoA bought them out, but even before, the US and the UK entity were completely separate companies, with only a name in common.

You need the card for 12 months at least, but some people who have had it just shy of that amount of time have had success, probably depends on their record. You probably won't have much luck with only a few months worth of history, but worth a shot maybe

Ash UK/US

This is what I did when I moved here, I am told it is not as easy these days.

cranes

If you bank with HSBC UK, you can request for credit history transfer when you open an account with HSBC US. Not too sure how this will help boost your US' credit score. I haven't tried this myself, but planning to in the next few months.

Bob

They'll only do it for certain account types though...and HSBC US is a bit meh...but if you aren't bothered by having a branch near by, it's a good starting block.

HarryTheSpider

We've been here about 8 months now.

We've just now got a proper, official, bona fide credit score here in the US. It's not brilliant, not yet, but here's what we've found/experienced...

0 - Background - we used AIG's inbound programme and got bank accounts and a credit card with a tidy limit established before we arrived - just had to supply our SSN inside of 90 days... Many other forum members have used this - this forum put me on to it - great for sorting out a car lease/loan and lower priced insurance... well worth the $400 fee (employer paid that) - saved more than than in car insurance the first 6 months...
1 - Read the wiki here on the forum - fatbrit and others put a ton of effort into it and we've found it useful.
2 - Any US credit cards you have - keep the balance low - somebody mentioned 20% of limit or lower...
3 - We were turned down recently (before we had a credit score) for a credit card - the 2 reasons given: not long enough credit history, AND not enough revolving credit lines!! This seems to suggest having 2-4 credit cards, all in good standing, with say max 20% of limit as balance for each demonstrates you really can manage your credit etc... So we went out and got a CapitalOne card - low limit.
4 - Use your credit cards regularly and pay off the balance each month if you can, or get the balance down...
5 - Pay your other bills on time - many of these do eventually get reported - every little bit helps...
6 - Wait! It can take a couple of years apparently to get a reasonable score established...

Good luck!

Cheers

Harry

Bob

Unlike the UK, they only report delinquent payments here, unfortunately...so paying on time is good, but doesn't help build your score.

The 2-4 varied lines of credit, it's better to have a car payment and credit card rather than too many credit cards. To many cards will have a negative impact as well, because of the potential to over extend your credit, or the theory goes.

Don't apply for to many cards, but if you do apply for stuff, it's a good idea to do them all within a few days of each other, same for shopping for insurance or other finance, if you can because it'll only pop up as one ding on your credit score as a low passive ding, but it's not good having to many spread out either.

tonrob

Mrs tonrob and I have decent credit scores and about 6 years worth of US credit history. For the past 18 months we've both been on a bit of a credit card spree, applying for 2 or 3 different cards at a time in order to get travel-related sign-up bonuses. We currently have 22 card accounts between us, and have never carried a balance, and as most of even the fee-charging cards have a first year free offer it's cost us a negligible amount to amass close to 1.5MM airline miles/hotel points (conservative value estimate $15,000 but can push way beyond that by redeeming for first class airfares etc., which we fully intend to do).

We've been watching our credit scores closely, and while they take a minor hit during each application spree they have bounced back within a couple of months and usually finish up being a couple of points higher than before we applied. I'm assuming this is because each new line pushes our utilization down further?

E3only

Thanks for sharing.

1. Say you apply 2-3 credit cards today, have you noticed is this means a single hard enquiry or two?

2. It happened to me when I merely called AmEx and increased by limit. All things being equal, my score went up 17 points.

fatbrit

You may have difficulties getting a mortgage with such a large number of cards.
Underwriters like to assume that you're making the minimum payment with all your cards maxed out before they start to calculate how much is left to pay your mortgage.

tonrob

It depends - as I understand it, different card issuers pull reports from different agencies and it varies by location (e.g. Chase may pull consistently from one agency for my apps but this may be a different agency to the one it uses for enquiries for app in your area). When grouping card applications there may be overlap in the agencies used, on the other hand there may not be.

tonrob

Completely agree - wouldn't be playing this game if I thought there was the slightest risk of needing a mortgage in the next couple of years.