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You don’t actually need a good credit score to get a loan. The only reason FICO scores exist is to reduce the amount of work banks have to do to investigate potential customers. However, many smaller banks are willing to do a manual underwriting, where they look at your history and make a decision based on that instead.
Obviously if your credit score is low that is indicative of poor borrowing habits which will probably be corroborated by manual underwriting. However, if you have no credit history at all, you will probably get a better outcome than if the bank only looked at the FICO score.
Look for community banks, which are very small banks that serve your local community. Those banks are far more willing to give customized service like manual underwriting.
They may do that for an extra percentage point of interest.
Better credit scores will definitely net you a lower interest rate, though. Zero credit history is a major liability for lenders, so even small banks or credit unions with private investors will want some kind of benefit or incentive for taking on an increased risk of default.
The real fucked up part about credit scores is that it seems like it should be something the federal government regulates, but they don’t. For-profit companies do. And when they get hacked and expose all of your data so scammers can assume your identity for eternity, they can’t be held liable or responsible. All of that just so lenders can feel safer about who they give money to.
Regulate how? It’s a tool for lenders to decide if they want to lend or not, and on what terms. If the government was to make one, banks would still make their own because it’s for them to decide how to do business.
What would the government do? Prevent banks from using tools to make decisions?Regulate how? It’s a tool for lenders to decide if they want to lend or not, and on what terms.
And also a tool for landlords to decide whether or not to rent to you, for insurers to decide what your rates should be, and employers to decide whether or not to hire you. It isn’t just about bank loans.
What about transparency? Sure, you can request a free copy of your credit report… once per year. Any more often than that and you have to pay. How do I dispute errors or inaccuracies on my report? How do the big three calculate my credit score? Why do each of them come up with a different number for the same individual despite sharing a similar set of parameters, and which one is used against me if I am denied for something on the basis of poor credit? What happens when they mishandle my sensitive data like my Social Security number, and what kind of legal options do I have to seek recompense?
You might be surprised to learn that the government does in fact regulate consumer reporting agencies. Ever heard of the Fair Credit Reporting Act? A lot of those rules came about from the systemic abuse of the clients of these credit reporting firms, including institutional racism.
The question is, why are these firms still allowed to operate as independent agencies and not as an apparatus of the state? What is the value of having these entities be private?
I don’t disagree that these services are necessary for our economy to function, and we can’t just tell people that they can’t come up with a system to determine loan risk for their clients, but there are some serious problems with the way credit scores work and how they are used in making certain decisions that should, in my opinion, be handled by an entity not concerned with making a profit off of their mostly unwilling clientele.
Lots of good points you’re making there.
I think the way it could be approached would be for a government agency to start doing their own, force company to report the information to their service, and to provide the service free for individuals, and cheap for corporations.
It would then be relatively fair for individuals to be allowed to deny these companies the right to get their data
This way, the credit agencies would be free to do whatever they want, but they would have to step their game up, or just get obsoleted.
I’m actually part of a credit union and would recommend it to many people. The credit union didn’t get interest rates as low as what the big banks did a few years ago, but they’re also not as high as the big banks are currently.
One thing I really liked about the credit union was that they didn’t use my credit score when deciding my interest rate, they only checked it to make sure it didn’t have any glaring issues. Also I like that the credit union doesn’t sell my mortgage to a third party.
I also would recommend credit unions over banks. I have a local one that I use but I also have an account with PenFed, which is open to the whole nation and is one of the few places that offers a 2% unlimited cashback on everything no-fees card.
Imagine having to shoulder the burden of unfucking the litigation meth feces garbage destruction wrought on your house because you didn’t do a credit check on your tenants. All this on top of the property taxes, mortgage, insurance, and upkeep of your property. Pay your bills and maybe you won’t have to live in your car, stupid.
Nice strawman argument. Does your brain only allow you to make inspired leaps of logic like “no credit score == meth head”?
A lot of people think social credit scores are something society can’t function without, but they only started in 1989.
tell me you’re ignoring how the adult personal financial world works in the west since 1989, without you, know telling me
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I certainly have problems with the way current financial institutions operate, but prior to the credit score there wasn’t a standardized, scientific way to assess lending risk. It was left to a good ol’ boy process rife with racism, classism, and sexism. Sadly, we’re better off with what we have now, as flawed as it is.
And now it’s time to nix what we have for something better, just like we did before.
There still isn’t a standardized and scientific way to assess credit risk. There are three major companies, several minor ones, and all of them offer multiple products.
IT’S ALL A FUCKING SCAM. We just blindly accept random institutions compiling all of our data and telling a bank whether or not we should be given a loan regardless of our ability to pay it back. It has little to do with income anymore, which should be the only allowable metric. Don’t want the risk? Get the fuck out of the mortgage business.
Found the 550 guy lol
About 780 last I looked. Utilization went up when I decided to do some travel this year. But go on thinking that the only people that want a system reformed are the ones that don’t know how to work it.
I’m sure that’ll get you far in life. All the way to brown-nosing middle management.
This is the internet. I, along with everyone else here, don’t give two shits about your score or opinion bud.
And yet your cunt ass cares enough to post.
So you’re a hypocritical cunt, not just a normal cunt.
which should be the only allowable metric.
Why? Income is a terrible metric. Regardless of how much money I’ve made, I’ve always spent within my means. I’ve never carried debt, but always has my cc to build the credit score.
The idea that some bozo who spends more than he earns has a better credit score than me just because he makes more money makes absolutely zero sense to me.
Income is a terrible metric.
I suggest you lie on a few credit applications (not really). You’ll be amazed at how readily you get approved just because your income crosses a certain threshold, even with the same score.
Several years ago I was looking to add a couple of cards, primarily for emergency reasons. I apply for a card and get rejected. Six months later I get a new job that’s promising me a significantly higher income but I haven’t started receiving more money yet (contract work is fun). I apply for the same card, same information, knowing my credit score had not changed, the only difference in my applications was my income (that required no verification) and that time I got approved.
So apparently the banks have a different thought process than you.
And what the fuck is wrong with you that you even think about someone else’s credit score? Are you also mad that your neighbor is gay?
Don’t answer that…
I never said it wasn’t a factor, only a terrible one that shouldnt be the only one. Also try improving your credit score and see the better rates and cards with better benefits open up to you.
And what the fuck is wrong with you that you even think about someone else’s credit score?
Considering you think I spend time thinking about people’s credit score because I think it’s better metric for getting credit, this question is all but a straight up admission that you spend a lot of mental energy thinking about the income of other people.
Are you mad that your neighbor is straight too?
What about those that have sufficient income, but don’t pay their bills and have defaulted on previous loans?
Mortgages were, prior to assholes screwing the whole thing up with mortgage-backed securities, seen as one of the lowest risk things banks could handle.
If you default on a mortgage the bank forecloses and auctions the home. This was QUITE rare before the housing crash. The problem was that the banking industry became so lax that they were giving loans to people that actually did NOT have the money to pay for them, figuring that they could just seize and sell the home as they always had. The problem THEN is that mortgage-backed securities were a thing by that point and every foreclosure caused another domino to fall over.
It became a shitshow because banks fucked themselves over being greedy pieces of shit.
It was so much better before! When being a woman, or god forbid, being black, counted as serious criteria. Oh, and you best be friends with the banker. (Read the part, again, about being a white man, who was well accepted in the community.)
It’s not a scam, it’s a step forward. Time to take the next step.
Just because it was worse before, doesn’t mean we can’t also make the NOW better, again.
How do you know that those aren’t factored in still?
Because there are standard metrics for where the score comes from. Each of the big three has slightly different weighting, but it all broadly comes out the same.
The numbers aren’t made up. You can look at your credit report and see what is affecting it.
The numbers are made up, unless you can actually prove your original statement.
Edit: oh, and since proving a negative is essentially impossible, you can’t actually prove your original statement, so I would recommend not making statements like that, and try to rephrase.
You think the people that scream about credit scores have ever looked at and analyzed their credit report lol
Yes, you brown-nosing corpo-slurping bootlicking twit, I do in fact keep a pretty damn close watch on my credit score because suckups like you will fellate and propagate any capitalist horseshit you can so I have to rather than just NOT WORRYING ABOUT IT and only applying for lines of credit in line with my income levels.
Instead it becomes this stupid game of laddering where you can apply for an increase now, but you can’t apply for new credit, but also you need a new loan to maximize your score, no not that kind of loan, no also don’t pay off the loan that’s bad too, why did you need more credit again?
Anyone ignorant enough to support this needs their own separate financial system that caters to their intrinsic need to be a sub.
Yep it’s not a mystery at all if you care enough to read about it. All these “capitalist dystopia” complainers sound like what I probably thought about credit scores when I was in my early 20s and had terrible credit from being irresponsible with credit cards. My credit score is 800 now because I simply pay my bills on time and have an established history of doing so.
Yeah, it’s not a perfect system and I would welcome increased federal oversight and greater transparency because it does have the potential for abuse.
That said, it’s not numbers made up to keep the little guy down. Lenders want to lend money because they make money off it. The whole point is to determine whether or not you’re a safe investment.
We could have a discussion on the merits of modern usury, which can be deeply predatory and abusive. It’s not the credit score that’s the problem.
No you can’t. When you look at your credit report you see a lot of “MAY” and “COULD” and “MIGHT.”
This is horseshit.
i dont see the problem with improving your credit score by sacrificing a virgin to the volcano every year, at least anyone can do it instead of just the well accepted white men
im being unfair of course, unlike modern credit scores tossing a virgin into the volcano doesnt still put minorities at a disadvantage
there wasn’t a standardized, scientific way to assess lending risk.
Neither is it now. You forgot the ‘hidden from public’ part.
They tell u what affects your score right on the credit report! Hahaha What the fuck are u clowns talking about.
Yeah. It’s really changed a lot…
Why would you be better off? In the rest of the world you just have to provide proof of income and proof of savings and debt and banks can calculate how much they are willing to loan you for the purchase of a house. Seems to work fine, and I don’t have to have pay interest on meaningless loans just to prove that I can.
The problem is that just having the income and savings doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll be as good about paying back a loan as someone of your same income and savings.
That’s supposed to be where the credit score helps, but the current system is so shady that it basically just reads as the ol’ boys club system but asking pretty please to pretend there’s a formula and method being used.
I think there are plenty of failsafe mechanisms. But most importantly, if you fail to pay your mortgage, the bank has the right to take possession of your house. Those forces the bank to do it’s due diligence with regards to the value of the house. Also, if a bank has been too lenient with its mortgages, it can get into serious trouble - the government here enforces pretty strict rules to prevent people from getting in over their heads.
It seems to me it doesn’t count risk. It counts profitability. It’s why it drops when people pay their loans early.
If it was a publicly available algorithim, then Id believe you. But it ain’t, so I’m suspicious.
It’s better than what it was. High time to take another look, but it’s far, far better.
We don’t know the algorithms specifically, but we have enough information to have a pretty good idea how it works.
If you don’t take credit facilities but pay for your expenses in cash, you are considered a risk. Credit scoring based on credit card purchases is akin to being required to be spied on every step of the way just so you can access what you practically can without the credit in the first place. I don’t have a problem with people who are fine with that kind of behavior. But there should be a way of fair assessment even if you pay in cash.
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At one time you walked into a bank, showed how much money you made, and got a home loan.
But that allowed too many Black people to buy homes, so credit scores were invented as a way to discriminate against people using a black box with no real published metric.
Yay for redlining under a different name!
Don’t forget about Homeowners Associations! Redlining in another form.
Nobody fucking cares how many black people buy houses. They only care about making the most profit.
Idiots like you are why systemic racism persists.
Fuck off.
You’re showing way too much faith in the institutions that invented the red lining in the first place to imply that the ol’ boys club system wasn’t waaaaay more rife with systemic racism.
The post war recovery laws were literally lobbied to specifically exclude black folks, but sure, home buying was easier for them then than it was post credit scores.
My dude, you’re missing about thirty years of history.
Redlining was made illegal by the Fair Housing Act in the late 60’s. It may have still existed in some fucked up form but it was no longer the standard by which lending was done. There’s a reason the rate of home ownership among Black people has steadily risen ever since, and yet it still isn’t close to any other group of people.
The whole system is fucked and it’s largely set up to fuck Black people because some mayo motherfuckers still want to own humans.
It might have been “illegal” but lenders were still basically doing it anyways, just calling it everything else imaginable. Shit they still do it when they think they’ll get away with it, folks have actually tested it, real estate brokers list houses shown by white “owners” at higher values than those shown by black “owners”
It’s funny how the other person who replied to me said credit scores are actually the solution to racism. I think you’re the one who’s right it’s just funny. I’d like to take this opportunity to say it’s retarded that you can pay rent for years but not be approved for a mortgage with equal or lesser payments.
Nobody said credit scores were the solution. They were merely a step forward.
Young liberals: “It’s not good enough or fast enough! NOW!!!”
I’ll take what I can get, even if it takes some time.
“Young liberals” are why we got the fucking civil rights act, ya fuckin’ dink.
It’s you who has held us back, with your obsession with capitalism as a just and fair ruler.
I don’t think you know what social credit score means.
This thread is full of people who don’t know what they’re talking about. I mean the whole thread is based on the implication that the credit bureaus are a government program.
Idk, doesn’t seem like magic to me. Just pay your bills. Grow your existing credit cards. Spend responsibly. Keep below 30% utilization of credit limit of each card and overall.
Start early (when you are 18) and by the time you actually need to use it (car or mortgage products). Then you will be gucci.
It’s a shame basic financial literacy is not taught in schools.
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yeah but if you’re responsible enough to only spend money you actually have, you’re fucked
For 25 years I’ve only carried a debt on my credit card one time, and that was for a few months under special circumstances. I have a top credit score.
It’s a stupid game, but it’s easy to play.
Why do Americans think you need to carry a debt to build credit? That is the opposite.
I put EVERYTHING on credit card, and pay everything off on time. Never missed a payment. My credit score was the highest it can be by the time I turned 21. I’ve never paid a penny in fees or interest.
That’s not what they said, and Americans, in general, do not think that.
Holy hell they sure do. A lot of Americans don’t even understand you don’t immediately start accruing interest. You clearly have not witnessed the absolute insanity of Americans saying that they use a debit card because they “don’t want to pay interest” or they “only spend money they have”.
Also the comment you’re replying to was likely in agreement with the premise established by the person they were replying to.
The ignorance is astounding but to be expected. 12 years of mandatory schooling and not one class on personal finance. These are not difficult concepts. They’re just never conveyed.
The 12 years of mandatory schooling that they already get is wasted on most of them anyway. Mention President McKinley, and most Americans will respond with “who?”
Education in the US sucks in a lot of ways for a lot of people for a lot of reasons, and most “students” don’t end up retaining much of anything as a result of those forces. We’re trained to get grades based on attendance and participation, from material that is taught to the test. Very little of your grade has anything to do with whether you actually learned, digested, and retained anything…
We were all taught about the Whiskey Rebellion in high school. But bring it up in any conversation about taxes, and 99% of the time you’ll get a blank stare, or “the what?”
So we can pile “financial literacy” on top of all the other things that are jammed into American curricula, and it won’t make a damn bit of difference in the end. Because it doesn’t matter what is taught - it’s not going to be learned anyway. Payday lenders will still make bank, buy-here-pay-here dealerships will keep recycling the same cars at a huge profit, the poor will still play the lottery, and Santander will keep making car loans to under-qualified applicants at extortionate interest rates. People will still buy $70k pickup trucks on a $50k salary, and roll their negative equity into the next overpriced consumer wealth/masculinity signaling device.
Survivorship bias!!
Not survivorship bias.
Care to elaborate on why not?
Just so I know. I’m not saying you’re wrong.
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I understand what survivorship bias is, I just don’t see how it applies here. Could you explain?
That just because you managed to do that doesn’t make it the norm.
You could argue that that simply isn’t an option for many people. If you can live life without using a credit card implies you have not struggled for that extra cash, whereas some people simply don’t make enough to not use it.
I still don’t see how this makes it survivorship bias.
But that being said, if you’re not going to be able to pay off something in a few months, then you can’t afford it with or without a card, because buying it with the card just makes it more expensive. Sometimes you need to tide yourself over, I did that when my wife was switching jobs and we were moving so there were extra expenses. But I quickly paid it all off when we returned to normal income.
I believe it’s SB just for the fact that having a line of credit available and not using it simply isn’t an option for some people.
Imagine you have a line of credit and you lose your job, but you still need to feed your family. Then that person is going to do what they need to provide food.
The bias come from you commenting in the vain of I did this, ergo everybody else should be the same, when in fact we are not all the same.
Similar to how someone from a council estate can make it as a politician, which neglects to consider that 99% of people from council estates with that dream didn’t make it.
I hope that makes more sense. I suck at explaining things.
I arrived to the US less than 5 years ago and I have top credit score. I never carry a balance, open credit cards that offer a lot of credit, benefits and bonus to increase my available credit (I have about 6 or 7 cards at the moment) and just wait. In less than a year I already had 740 which was enough to get a car loan with 1.9% apr (lowest offered was 1.85%)
I’m the same as you, and I think we kinda had an advantage because we started with a blank slate. No student loans (if you arrived as a working adult), no prior debts, and hitting the ground running (if you arrived with a job waiting for you).
Abolish currency, revert to trading sheep and goats.
But I have noting of value to barter, except this ass…
And you’ll go to jail for it. Slavery for you!
Based
When Equifax had a major leak exposing personal information of millions of Americans I sent them a notice to permanently remove my data from use. To be clear, my Equifax score IS NOT frozen, it doesn’t exist altogether.
I’m still fucking pissed about that. All of their equipment should have been confiscated, securely erased, and melted down. Then we should have sent them a bill for disposing of that data securely, and a massive (like billion dollar) fine for fucking up that badly.
has that affected you at all?
Yes. I was rejected from an apartment complex a few years ago. Otherwise, nothing at all.
I refuse to participate in this and I have no idea what my credit score is.
I bought my land and house through owner finance, my debt was to a single individual. No banks involved, no credit check. Obviously this isn’t always an option, but it still is an option in some cases, and it’s a damn valuable option when it does present itself.
I buy used cars only, either through owner finance or paid in full. No banks.
I have never had a loan from a bank.
I bought my land and house through owner finance, my debt was to a single individual.
That’s cool and all, but it isn’t practical if the person selling you the house also has a mortgage they need to pay off before moving. Shy of paying in cash, there’s not a home in my city of Houston I could have managed that with.
I buy used cars only, either through owner finance or paid in full. No banks.
I mean, that’s totally cool. But, again, it requires you to have a significant amount of cash on-hand and someone willing to sell a decent vehicle at a reasonable price. Possible, but certainly not trivial. And with the sheer number of dealerships and resellers and outright scammers in the business, its a minefield.
I have never had a loan from a bank.
Its certainly nice to have enough cash on hand to manage this trick. But good luck going to college without a parent’s savings. Even city colleges charge you far more than a part-time high school diploma job brings in.
I did know a couple of people who were born into relative poverty and managed to be totally unbanked while having a relatively easy time of it. But they were both sex workers. Not a career for the faint of heart.
I mean, again, obviously it’s not an option all the time. Just use common sense
As for the other points, I don’t think this comment really required someone to come through and cite it and break it down like I was some sort of Jordan Peterson esque life advice coach. I was giving my personal experience on not using the credit system, simply explaining how I personally have avoided the subject, and making the claim that there are other avenues. It’s not an essay, my dude. I’m not trying to sell anything to you. Again, just use common sense.
I just proved its possible, not that it’s feasible for YOU. Again, not trying to sell you anything
Just use common sense
I don’t think the issue is an absence of sense. What we’ve got is a massive asset bubble that benefits the financial sector. Very often, there simply isn’t a good choice to make. You’re either living in a slum at inflated costs or you’re stuck living way out in the exurbs (where you’ll be burning through your expensive car) or even potentially homeless.
You can be up to your eyeballs in debt despite making the “savvy” move at every turn.
Okay? Again, I’m not trying to sell you anything, dude.
Kinda sounds like you live in a high cost of living area and are mad about it, and aren’t smart enough not to go into debt trivially.
Also, my just use common sense comment was about you and your reading comprehension, it’s a bit off today.
“I want your money but I don’t want you to see how trustworthy I am. Just give me money”
Seriously how entitled is everyone these days. It is not a human right to borrow money, you are at the mercy of the banks because your are asking them for a favour. If you don’t like that, don’t ask them for money.
You always have the other option. Build savings instead, but then you have to wait for the things you want and you might have to live with family while doing so. I’m not saying this path is easy, but I’m not the one objecting to a lender wanting to know how good or bad I am with money before expecting them to risk theirs.
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“Not everyone has family they can stay with.” No I know that. Which is why I said it’s not easy to go this path.
"Many have shit credit due to health conditions that are not their fault. "
Which is not an argument for " give me your money without looking at my past" it’s an argument for mitigating circumstances to be better considered.
“Credit checks are increasingly used for apartment leases and car insurance.”
This is wrong. A security deposit is the landlords financial guarantee. I also think insurance should be based solely on driving record, not age , gender or where you live.
“Is it entitled for a person to think they should be able to have a place to live?”
If they expect to be lent money for it, no questions asked them it is absolutely the definition of entitled. You are not entitled to a place to live on someone else’s money. It is your responsibility to provide for yourself and your family. I’m all for expanding welfare programmes, help to buy schemes, rent control etc etc. Those things are something we all pay into and provide us with a safety net is bad things happen. Those things should make sure you are able to have a place to live, but don’t expect a bank to lend you 500k to buy a house without some idea of is they can trust you.
Now in saying some of this I find myself in the dirty position of siding with rich banks. I am not intending to do that because I hate that they make shit loads and squirrel it away for themselves, charge me for borrowing when I’m in negative and pay me back very little for using my money when I’m in positive. This is not about that, I’m only interested in what is fair in the isolated transaction of one party pending another money. Wouldn’t you want to know how likely you are too get back your money if you were the lender? Would you lend money to your friends with a gambling problem? Is the current system of credit check fair? Not exactly. It should be enough to be able to demonstrate financial responsibility. I paid rent for 20 years without missing a payment, but it wasn’t enough to demonstrate financial stability or responsibility and that is plain wrong.
shit credit due to health conditions
There’s your problem: it isn’t credit scores, it’s an abusive healthcare system tanking your credit score.
If everyone should have the same opportunities in life, they should have them despite their health conditions, the opposite is thinly veiled eugenics.
Your “score” is only there to sell you more score. This is the side effect of being able to access your own credit history (how very generous of them)
Every lender has their own criteria, and uses your credit history to generate their own score.
not much different than china’s “social credit” it seems
No credit. No score. Still bought house. There are ways around the system. Same for my cars usually. Buy them at auction. Ditto for phones. You don’t need that new $1200 iPhone. A used one for $250 cash and holding onto it for 6 years is much better.
What the fuck kind of wankjob is upvoting this boomer-tier “Just don’t buy Starbucks” horseshit?
“Just pay cash for everything on your $25k a year! You can totally buy a house if you save for the next two decades!”
Fuck off.
I make less than $25k/yr, lol - I learned to fix my own beater cars. Bought a 3/2 during the 2008 crash for $30k because it was almost gonna be condemned, and was a by-owner sale - I only needed like 8k down, and then worked on fixing it up myself. It was barely livable when I bought it.
So all people need to do is wait 15+ years until a depression-level market crash. Got it.
And then live in squalor while you do home repairs yourself what all that free time you have.
I give it 4, if that. I’ve already been though 3 “once in a lifetime” depressions.
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I think you mean 1 year. Lol
Well it’s been 15 years since 2008…
And your dumb ass thinks that buying a house right now is possible on less than $100k a year. Yeah, you’re a fucking moron.
I will reiterate my fuck off.
You can too - just need to be willing to live in a shithole for a while.
My guy, the shitholes where I live sell for $100k minimum, and come with several hundred a month in lot rent, because they’re trailers. A shitty condo is $200k or more, plus, again, a few hundred a month in association fees. I could move somewhere with a lower cost of living but I’d easily take a 50% paycut, so I’d be in the same situation. It’s not about not being willing to live in crappy places, it’s about even the crappy places being well outside of what nearly everyone can afford without a mortgage.
You really should take advantage of any first time homebuyers programs you have in your state, and talk to a real estate agent to keep a look out for you. Deals pop up all the time, and the reason you’re not seeing them is you don’t have access to the multiple listing network (MLS), while a real estate agent does. All you see on the market is “what’s left”, after shit gets snagged up. You have no idea what’s available out there.
I did the same kind of thing he did, bought a meth lab in 2011 for 50k owner carry contract, evicted the meth heads (that was fun) then gutted it and spent a few years sleeping on the floor, working full time for $16 an hour at day and fixing up the place at night. Had an electrician and plumber friend come show me how to do stuff and help me out for pretty cheap. Sold it in 2020 for 175k when I got married and used that and the new wife’s credit score to get our family house where it’s safe to have kids
A lot of luck and a lot of work. It’s not easy and there was a lot of luck involved for sure.
It’s cool that you were able to improve your situation with a lot of luck, hard work and sacrifice but a basic middle class existence shouldn’t require a lot of luck.
100% no argument at all. I feel very lucky that I was able to do it, and very sad that that’s what it takes….
Hahahahahaha, “no credit, still bought a house”, ok mr my uncle left me gold bars in his will, the leprechauns showed me the end of the rainbow, hahahahahaha
It’s incredibly expensive being poor, lots of people are poor, there are of course ways to be poor, and without good credit, but everything costs three to four times as much in the end, if you don’t have cash on hand.
The Sam Vimes “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness by Terry Pratchett’s Ringworld comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
Can it be done without a credit score, sure, is it incredibly difficult and in the end more costly, almost always
Been poor my whole life. Guarantee 99% of people on here make far more than I do. I can’t work as much as others due to health issues, and I still managed it though cunning, sacrifice, and good timing.
You’re pretty massively understating how much timing played a role in your specific case.
The timing was more a factor of having a real estate agent as a friend. If you’re using bullshit like Zillow to look for properties, then you’re an idiot.
Zillow is not MLS, and most of what people are seeing ‘on the market’ is shit that’s left over from being snagged up. Get yourself a real estate agent that can keep an eye out on property for you, and there are plenty of deals that come across their desks that you could be notified of before it hits general availability. They don’t make money unless they find you something, so they are generally on the ball when it comes to keeping an eye out. Everyone here whining is just showing their inexperience and lack of drive for actually fixing their situation. Instead they just want to be stuck in a rental loop their entire lives.
No, you bought in 2008 when prices plummeted to insanely low levels due to economic collapse that was ALMOST worse than the Great Depression. There were lots and lots of modest or shitty houses like yours available for cheap then, all over the country.
It was 95% that, and maybe 5% your resourcefulness and willingness to sacrifice or whatever.
Buying a house like yours for 30k (even inflation-adjusted) are nearly nonexistent in the vast vast majority of the US at this point. They’re definitely not out there by the hundreds of thousands in lower-middle income neighborhoods like they were in 2008-2010.
For a significant number of people to be able to do the same thing in the same way, there’d have to be a similar cataclismic event again.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/17/bankruptcies-rising-us-small-business – You don’t gotta wait long, I promise you.
Even if true, which is unlikely - point is that you’re not nearly as special as you think you are, and your point sucked.
when you’re poor that’s the only way to do it my man, most of the world is poor, ain’t no shame in it
Got my house through Habitat for Humanity. (And that’s not a free house program. Ask me if you want to know more.)
I was fortunate, but there was some motivation involved.
H4H works very well for very well qualified and motivated people. Im so glad you were able to make it work.
Yes, having money available so you don’t need credit bypasses the whole system. Have fun buying a house.
I bet you rent. LOL
Bought first home in early 2000s, sold that one and bought another since then. There is no way I would have been able to save up enough to pay cash during that time.
I didn’t claim to have paid all-cash for my house. I had a mortgage, I simply found a predatory by-owner lender and worked through all of his bullshit. They offered my mortgage on balloon, seeing that basically nobody ever managed to get a house paid off during the balloon period. So I did without…basically everything, for 8 years while I put every last penny I had to paying it off before the balloon was due. Lender said he’d been doing this for 45 years and had never seen anyone pull it off and he’d be happy to sell me another any time.
But during this time, I was paying what I would pay in rent, as a mortgage, basically paying MYSELF. Everything I worked so hard for and paid into during that 8 year stint, is STILL MINE. Every penny I paid, I still own. Meanwhile, everyone here sits on renting shit for $2k-3.5k/month and whines about never having enough money for anything.
And if you’re sitting there saying to yourself “30k over 8 years?! wtf that’s not hard?” – well, I was in the middle of my cancer treatments as well, and I can’t work nearly as much as anyone else. So it’s kind of hard to sympathize with the dipshits saying they make $80k/yr and can’t afford a house, when I made it work during cancer treatments and less than $20k/yr.
You’re getting down voted because you told the truth. Shame
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usually I love to shit on muricans, But Germany has something similar. A private company called “Schufa”. This private company secretly calculates your credit score (no one knows realy how they calculate it) which determines if you get an apartment (for rent) or not. Living in the wrong street already kills your credit score here.
If the Schufa doesnt have information about you, it counts as negative.
So instead of being racist to just Americans, you’re being racist to both Americans and Germans?
Let me guess, you are a murican?
Why yes, I am a proud american. Why do you ask?
Neither Americans nor Germans are a race.
Living on the wrong street? What does that entail?
Drug dealing, wrong skin colored neighbors, rabid squirrels stealing food from your kitchen… you know “the wrong street”.
As someone, who loves dunking on the Schufa, as any good German should. The Schufa-Score isn’t nearly as insane as some American credit score systems. Having an registered checkingsaccount & no outstanding bills or debt payments is enough data to have a high score.
You don’t need to repay debt to show, that you are able to.
Credit scores are the West’s social credit system.
If we value our freedom from a controlling, oppressive system, then we should penalize the creation, selling, buying and usage of credit score data. And we should keep on top of it to include any emerging attempts to re-establish an equivalent system.
I wish we Americans had more backbone to push back on corporate enshitification in general.
I was just considering this the other day.
Taking this logic to the extreme, wouldn’t someone with liquidity but no credit score face serious issues towards accessing housing and services, as per the post?
For the most part, it depends on the liquidity.
10k in reserves, you’ll get a few chances.
10 mil in reserves, they’ll let you fuck them. Rawdog.
owe the bank 1million, the bank owns you
owe the bank 100million, you own the bank
That was not a pleasant image!
I’m in this boat and it kind of sucks. I have a lot of savings after a few decades being a programmer, but my credit history consists of nothing but a few late bill payments over the years - never had a credit card or a house or car loan. To rent an apartment I always had to get my brother or father to co-sign the lease, or else I would just rent a room from somebody (which usually never required a credit check). I can’t get a credit card from a bank or even cards from stores.
On the other hand, it kind of doesn’t suck since I have no debt whatsoever, and I just bought the house I’ll spend the rest of my life in for cash. For the last fifteen years I’ve driven cars I bought for cash on eBay or Autotrader. There were times in my life when if I’d had access to easy credit I would have dug a big hole for myself, and the (very rational) unwillingness of anybody to lend me money saved from financial disaster.
Dude if you didn’t spend most of ur life taking out credit cards and just paying them off to build credit youre a complete moron!
You’re a programmer and this isn’t rocket science. Lol. Talk about failing at life.
If you’re good with your money, you should at least consider cards with cash back rewards. You can get cards that give you 2% back on everything. BCP will give you 6% on groceries but comes with a $95 annual fee.
I always pay my cards the moment a charge posts. No point in carrying debt and risking paying any interest.
Nicely done, this is not easy to do!
My mortgage company didn’t even look at my credit score once they saw my savings and income, which were REALLY not that much, just OK. But apparently good enough. So, I think credit score is only one thing they look at, and other positive things can outweigh a negative score.
What were your savings, if you don’t mind? I managed to get a house priced at 274k this year with only 20k saved, but a really good credit score, and about 100k income between me and my partner.
I don’t remember exactly, but it was probably not far off 20k saved with more like 50k income. House price was quite a bit lower than that, no equity from any previous homes owned.
Credit score usually just determines what your interest rate is. Not whether you get the loan or not. Your cash flow (direct deposits) are more indicative of whether u can pay the loan vs credit score.
