Starbucks66

Have to move apartment so found a new place and they wanted to do a credit check.

I’ve always paid the gas, electric and cable on time and I have a bank account with a credit card (with a small limit on). However I told the real estate agent not to expect much.

When I spoke to the agent today and it was over 700 and that is excellent, I thought it took a long time to build a good credit rating?

Is over 700 good?

NC Penguin

A couple of questions:

1) have you ever lived in the US in the past, even as a university student?

2) are you or have you ever been married to an American?

Read the FAQ about credit too...

Bob

yes.

SamuearlJackson

After having a credit card for 6 months and 2 days I met with a mortgage broker who checked my credit - all three scores were over 700. 700+ is in the good range. I was very surprised - I was half expecting that I wouldn't have a score at all.

It appears that if you don't spend a large % of your card limit (stay below 30% of the limit) and pay your bills on time and in full then you can get a credit score that will enable you to get a mortgage within 6 months of getting an unsecured CC. This FICO score estimator can be useful to estimate your credit score:
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/fico/calc.asp

www.annualcreditreport.com is where you get your reports from for free.

tonrob

I got a mortgage approved within a week of arriving, well before even applying for a credit card (or getting my SSN). I think it just depends where you go - maybe they have different policies.

Duncan Roberts

Technically it's great but in your (and my previous) situation it's not as great as it seems. Even with that high of a score you may still run into problems because of the lack of actual history. When I bought my car my rating was 719 but they wouldn't give me a loan without a co-signer because I only had 18 months of history on my file. If you opened up a credit card now at the same time as somebody else with the same score but 7 years of history, you would get a significantly lower credit limit. It should only cause 'problems' with things like getting a loan and credit limits but the closer you get to 5-7 years the less problems you will have.

Tracym

Credit score is only one thing that underwriters look at when deciding to approve a mortgage. Salary and time at current job, assets, time at current address, etc. are also considered.

leonatlanta

seriously though, here in the USA if your credit score reaches a really high point, then you will be sent straight to a "pound me up the ass federal prison", so i'd watch that if i were you.

Tracym

veronica jayne

How is that then?

Ray

An escaped lunatic ...ignore

Pimpbot

With a limited credit history, you file number takes a hit if you borrow money from several lenders over a short period of time. My first score was 700 and then dropped 50 points after the mortgage, Store card and a Lowes account were added. Don't go crazy just yet.

krizzy

We got a house and two car loans...within the first week...

We also got a second house after hubby was laid off...only in the USA...