Subaru BRZ future owner (fingers crossed)

[Pkush]

Originally Posted by Dr Speed

Not true. I'm not a personal banker or financial advisor . I would never personally carry 4 credit cards. The more sources of debt you have the less likely you are to get for an approval whether there is a balance or not. Don't beleive me? Go get 5 more credit cards and then try to apply for a mortgage

If you do it within a short timeframe it hurts. In the long run it helps, the more cards you have the better. As long as you use them ~10% and never pay late

[Jfheisenberg]

I just spoke a guy in a Subaru dealer on the phone. They had the BRZ '15 series blue (in rally blue color). I made an offer for 27k, he said 29k is the lowest they go.. (back in November another Subaru dealer offered me the same car for 28k)

Anyways, i also did ask him about any ideas about a 2016 BRZ series blue this year. He mentioned that its too soon to tell what Subaru is going to do for 2016 BRZs. He does not except a new 2016 BRZ to be release for another 8-9 months.

[Pkush]

Originally Posted by Jfheisenberg

I just spoke a guy in a Subaru dealer on the phone. They had the BRZ '15 series blue (in rally blue color). I made an offer for 27k, he said 29k is the lowest they go.. (back in November another Subaru dealer offered me the same car for 28k)

I got mine for 27,500. Another guy in our little group got his for 27,350. Tell them you'll take it for 27,500, the Series.Blue they got had to be on the lot for at LEAST 2-3 months. They might give in closer to month end.

I feel like 27,350 is the lowest you can get it without some family discounts or whatever.

[PandaSPUR]

Originally Posted by Dr Speed

Not true. I'm not a personal banker or financial advisor . I would never personally carry 4 credit cards. The more sources of debt you have the less likely you are to get for an approval whether there is a balance or not. Don't beleive me? Go get 5 more credit cards and then try to apply for a mortgage

Anyway.... OP good luck again with getting the subaru. If you are concerned just get serious with the dealer and ask them to pre approve you. It will involve a credit check but you are going to buy the car anyway

It doesn't hurt your score. In fact, as the others have said, closing them WILL drop your score because it affects the average age of your credit.

Lenders want to see that you have a diverse credit history with different types of debt and the ability to pay it all on time.

They're not worried you'll instantly hit the credit limit on all of your credit cards because they can see from your credit history that you're unlikely to do that.

Also, even if you were right about lenders being worried about a borrower maxing out their credit easily and instantly, the NUMBER of cards doesnt matter. You can have 20 cards and a credit limit of 1k overall lol.

I have 4 cards, a total of around 22k credit, and one of my cards makes up more than half of that total. It didn't hurt me during my loan negotiations. What did hurt was the student loans that I haven't started paying off yet (since the repayment schedule hasnt even begun) and my overall short average length of history.


EDIT: I got my 2015 BRZ Limited for 25.5k (before the taxes/fees/etc) so 27.5k for a series.blue sounds reasonable.

[Jfheisenberg]

Originally Posted by PandaSPUR

It doesn't hurt your score. In fact, as the others have said, closing them WILL drop your score because it affects the average age of your credit.

Lenders want to see that you have a diverse credit history with different types of debt and the ability to pay it all on time.

They're not worried you'll instantly hit the credit limit on all of your credit cards because they can see from your credit history that you're unlikely to do that.

Also, even if you were right about lenders being worried about a borrower maxing out their credit easily and instantly, the NUMBER of cards doesnt matter. You can have 20 cards and a credit limit of 1k overall lol.

I have 4 cards, a total of around 22k credit, and one of my cards makes up more than half of that total. It didn't hurt me during my loan negotiations. What did hurt was the student loans that I haven't started paying off yet (since the repayment schedule hasnt even begun) and my overall short average length of history.


EDIT: I got my 2015 BRZ Limited for 25.5k (before the taxes/fees/etc) so 27.5k for a series.blue sounds reasonable.

That was a good price you got for the limited! I will look around for other series blue brzs around my area. Either way i still have to sell my celica to use that money as part of down payment.

[Pkush]

Originally Posted by PandaSPUR

What did hurt was the student loans that I haven't started paying off yet (since the repayment schedule hasnt even begun)

I believe that is wrong. My credit history is based off of 1 credit card with 300 limit and nothing else except student loans. That means no phone bills or any other bills. Just that one card and loans. The loans that I haven't made a single payment on got my score up to ~740. Don't ask me how because I don't know

[Frost]

Originally Posted by TatharPallan

Closing the card hurts you. The idea is to keep the card open with a low balance. The ideal balance you should have on the card is 5-10%. Keep in mind the credit card companies make money off of interest. If you have a "0" balance on the card you aren't doing anything for them. If anything just hit the internets, there are plenty of articles regarding this.

Partly true and partly untrue.

Closing a credit card hurts you short term. They will see you closing a line of credit which triggers an "uh oh, why is he suddenly not wanting to borrow money?" but then they realize over long term that "he didn't need it".

Also, some misconceptions here:

Paying off loans instantly doesn't build credit. Paying off prescheduled loan payments ON TIME ALL THE TIME does.

If I go and borrow $10k and then turn around and pay it back the next day, it doesn't help me as much as borrowing that money and then making my agreed upon instalments on time for the next 12 months. THAT is solid proof that this person will keep his end of the bargain.

This is why things like student loans, initial car purchases, etc. are such good credit builders since you are not likely to pay them off instantly.

[EAGLE5]

DO NOT LEAVE A BALANCE ON CREDIT CARDS!!!

Speaking as someone with excellent credit, you DO NOT want to leave money on the credit cards each month. That's incredibly wasteful, unless you have a 0% card. Companies love lending me money because I pay them back. Credit card companies love me because they collect a couple percent on my purchases.

[PandaSPUR]

Originally Posted by Pkush

I believe that is wrong. My credit history is based off of 1 credit card with 300 limit and nothing else except student loans. That means no phone bills or any other bills. Just that one card and loans. The loans that I haven't made a single payment on got my score up to ~740. Don't ask me how because I don't know

My scores are 730-745 for all three, obtained from myFICO. So yea, its a good score, but ultimately at this point my unpaid student loans are my barrier to a higher score since there is no history of payment yet.

Creditors basically have no idea whether or not I can actually pay those loans on time because there is no history of me paying them off on schedule and consistently.

People are usually confused and misinformed about how credit and credit scores work. CreditKarma, Mint, etc have good articles about how to properly build your credit.

Ultimately, creditors care about your history. The length, contents, and consistency of it.

[Malt]

Originally Posted by Dr Speed

Not true. I'm not a personal banker or financial advisor . I would never personally carry 4 credit cards. The more sources of debt you have the less likely you are to get for an approval whether there is a balance or not. Don't beleive me? Go get 5 more credit cards and then try to apply for a mortgage

Anyway.... OP good luck again with getting the subaru. If you are concerned just get serious with the dealer and ask them to pre approve you. It will involve a credit check but you are going to buy the car anyway

[EDIT] I just saw that you were located in Canada, which quite possibly has a completely different structure when it comes to credit than the US does.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about do you? Go to any credit building forum and they will tell you the exact opposite of what you are saying to do. Obviously you don't want to open 5 new lines of credit up right before you are going to buy a house, because that lowers the average age of your accounts on your credit report, plus the +5 injuries on your reports, plus the big hit from 5 new accounts under 6 months in age.

To the OP. Your chances of approval are highly dependent on what types of credit you've had. The free scores you get are often estimations and not the true scores lenders use when deciding credit. Furthermore, the scoring model used for vehicle loans is completely different than the one used for credit cards or mortgages.

Do NOT give out any personal information for credit checks when shopping around for your vehicle. Car dealerships are notorious for running your credit while you are out on the test drive to see what financing they can provide and if you decide to not buy that day you've gotten a inquiry on your report for nothing. My suggestion is to line up your financing with a bank or credit union BEFORE going out to buy and let them know you have your own financing. Saves a lot of hassle throughout the whole process and you'll end up with the least amount of damage to your credit.

[steve99]

Originally Posted by Malt

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about do you? Go to any credit building forum and they will tell you the exact opposite of what you are saying to do. Obviously you don't want to open 5 new lines of credit up right before you are going to buy a house, because that lowers the average age of your accounts on your credit report, plus the +5 injuries on your reports, plus the big hit from 5 new accounts under 6 months in age.

To the OP. Your chances of approval are highly dependent on what types of credit you've had. The free scores you get are often estimations and not the true scores lenders use when deciding credit. Furthermore, the scoring model used for vehicle loans is completely different than the one used for credit cards or mortgages.

Do NOT give out any personal information for credit checks when shopping around for your vehicle. Car dealerships are notorious for running your credit while you are out on the test drive to see what financing they can provide and if you decide to not buy that day you've gotten a inquiry on your report for nothing. My suggestion is to line up your financing with a bank or credit union BEFORE going out to buy and let them know you have your own financing. Saves a lot of hassle throughout the whole process and you'll end up with the least amount of damage to your credit.

It might be different here in Oz but if you have say 4 credit cards all with say $5000 limit and you go for a housing loan. The Bank will run the numbers based on you owing the max on all 4 cards and having to make minimum payment on a total of 4 x 5000 = $20000 debt even if you actually pay the cards each month and have next to no debt on them.

They want to see you have the capacity to service the max card debt possible plus your new loan, kind of sucks buy can see the banks point of view.

[Malt]

Originally Posted by steve99

It might be different here in Oz but if you have say 4 credit cards all with say $5000 limit and you go for a housing loan. The Bank will run the numbers based on you owing the max on all 4 cards and having to make minimum payment on a total of 4 x 5000 = $20000 debt even if you actually pay the cards each month and have next to no debt on them.

They want to see you have the capacity to service the max card debt possible plus your new loan, kind of sucks buy can see the banks point of view.

That's certainly not the case here in the US. Infact, its quite the opposite. If you have one credit card with a limit of say $5000 and go apply for another card, typically speaking they look at your history and almost without fail give you another car right around your current limit. This means that if you have a credit card with a $20,000 limit and no balance and apply for another one, they usually will give you the same limit. Obviously this is largely dependent on your income but available credit on credit cards is not looked at as a liability in the eyes of most american lenders, only actual debt. I know it sounds crazy to logical people, but this is one of the ways how people game the system to reach those crazy high credit scores. I highly suggest people head over to www.creditboards.com and read up if you want actual advice about improving credit scores.

Credit utilization is a significant portion of your score and if you have 4 credit cards with $10,000 limits, only use one and the rest are kept in a safe, and float a $1000 balance on it then your overall utilization is at 2.5% instead of the 10% if you only had one card. This of course is only a good idea if the cards you have have no annual fees and you are not retarded with credit cards and max them all out.

The credit system in the US is frankly stupid. If you get in over your head and make some bad choices and stuff goes into collections, there is no "real" incentive to actually pay that debt back. Paying off the debt doesn't remove the late payments or negative marks on the credit report and they stay there for several years. The length of time is dependent on the state that you live in. Some real change is needed or the US is going to face another financial meltdown once the interest rates start going back up and people who have been living off credit suddenly can't afford their skyrocketing credit card payments.

[PandaSPUR]

Originally Posted by steve99

It might be different here in Oz but if you have say 4 credit cards all with say $5000 limit and you go for a housing loan. The Bank will run the numbers based on you owing the max on all 4 cards and having to make minimum payment on a total of 4 x 5000 = $20000 debt even if you actually pay the cards each month and have next to no debt on them.

They want to see you have the capacity to service the max card debt possible plus your new loan, kind of sucks buy can see the banks point of view.

I wont doubt what you say since I'm not from where you're from, but I'm curious.. How would having 4x cards with $5000 limit on each, be different from having one card with $20,000 limit? It sounds like you'd have to reject credit line increases from your card issuer.

[Malt]

Originally Posted by PandaSPUR

I wont doubt what you say since I'm not from where you're from, but I'm curious.. How would having 4x cards with $5000 limit on each, be different from having one card with $20,000 limit? It sounds like you'd have to reject credit line increases from your card issuer.

I could be reading it wrong but I'm fairly certain that Steve is saying that in Oz a line of credit (ie credit card) is considered actual debt up to the credit limit even if there is no balance on the card at all. In that case, 4 CC's with $5000 limit would be exactly the same as 1 CC with a $20,000 limit.