Credit History
Two of my coworkers- count them, two different ones made bids on a house this week. It literally kills me that they are bidding on stuff, when I can't really afford what I want (about 20K more than I can reasonably pay for right now - so totally within reach in the next 12-18 months.)
One of them recently got married. His wife is an awesome girl. Apparently with a really poor credit history. He's mentioned before that she's really bad with her money and just doesn't do what is necessary to manage her money (like pay off bills.) He knew it was bad when he married her. It's not a death knell for the relationship or anything. But it did make it much more complicated this week when they finally started trying to get pre-approval for a mortgage. He seems pretty responsible, so I assume that his credit score is near mine (760ish depending on what burreau you pull from.) Her credit is apparently so bad (sub 650) that she wouldn't even qualify for a mortgage, only his credit qualifies them for a mortgage, so significantly less than they expected to be able to borrow.
How do I know my credit score you wonder? Oh well my friends there is this awesome site that tells you your TransUnion score for free. Check it out www.creditkarama.com
They make money the same way Mint does - by referring you to ads and offers that are relevant to you. I haven't found the ads relevant like the Mint ads are - but I think it's b/c of the organization - or I should say the disorganization of the ads. They put some generic rating about how much they THINK the ad will apply to me. It's not organized based on category so I could chose what I'm actually interested in. So it their ads aren't as targeted as they could be, but they're trying, so I'll give them props for that.
Other than getting your credit score for free and you can do a "credit score simulator" where you can see if you borrow more, or pay off something, or are 60 days late on a credit card payment, it will gustimate what your score will increase/decrease to. It's nice to run senarios for somethings like paying off a loan and see how it affects you.
They offer some other stuff, but none of it is very interesting or useful.
Maybe someday I'll make enough money, and have enough saved up to actually be able to buy a house. The rumblings around the banking industry is fear of a third major wave of bankrupcies they are expecting to start hitting around Sept. I'm hoping that will give me enough time to save up a bit more for a down payment, hopefully interests rates will drop another half point or so, and I'll qualify for a mortgage that I can reasonablly afford.
Somehow I don't think even a third wave of bankrupcies will drop the housing prices in Cambridge MA low enough that I could afford w/o having to get married to someone who makes at least as much money as me.
One of them recently got married. His wife is an awesome girl. Apparently with a really poor credit history. He's mentioned before that she's really bad with her money and just doesn't do what is necessary to manage her money (like pay off bills.) He knew it was bad when he married her. It's not a death knell for the relationship or anything. But it did make it much more complicated this week when they finally started trying to get pre-approval for a mortgage. He seems pretty responsible, so I assume that his credit score is near mine (760ish depending on what burreau you pull from.) Her credit is apparently so bad (sub 650) that she wouldn't even qualify for a mortgage, only his credit qualifies them for a mortgage, so significantly less than they expected to be able to borrow.
How do I know my credit score you wonder? Oh well my friends there is this awesome site that tells you your TransUnion score for free. Check it out www.creditkarama.com
They make money the same way Mint does - by referring you to ads and offers that are relevant to you. I haven't found the ads relevant like the Mint ads are - but I think it's b/c of the organization - or I should say the disorganization of the ads. They put some generic rating about how much they THINK the ad will apply to me. It's not organized based on category so I could chose what I'm actually interested in. So it their ads aren't as targeted as they could be, but they're trying, so I'll give them props for that.
Other than getting your credit score for free and you can do a "credit score simulator" where you can see if you borrow more, or pay off something, or are 60 days late on a credit card payment, it will gustimate what your score will increase/decrease to. It's nice to run senarios for somethings like paying off a loan and see how it affects you.
They offer some other stuff, but none of it is very interesting or useful.
Maybe someday I'll make enough money, and have enough saved up to actually be able to buy a house. The rumblings around the banking industry is fear of a third major wave of bankrupcies they are expecting to start hitting around Sept. I'm hoping that will give me enough time to save up a bit more for a down payment, hopefully interests rates will drop another half point or so, and I'll qualify for a mortgage that I can reasonablly afford.
Somehow I don't think even a third wave of bankrupcies will drop the housing prices in Cambridge MA low enough that I could afford w/o having to get married to someone who makes at least as much money as me.
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