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Home > Okay, found out credit score ... is this good or bad?

Okay, found out credit score ... is this good or bad?

January 30th, 2008 at 10:34 pm


well, it has been awhile (probably three years since we bought our house) since I've known our credit scores. I was curious what they were, so I had State Farm run a preliminary credit approval for financing a portion of the car with them (we paid cash for our last few cars and I was wondering what an additional $5K toward purchase would do.)

anyhow, the scores are 686 for me and 653 for DH. Is this good or bad?

we qualify for Tier 4 financing at 8.74 for 48 month of 9.04 for 60 months. Prepayment penalty is $130 if in the first year ...

I thought our scores would have been higher, but maybe not. The girl at SF did say they were strictly a bank so they had higher criteria. Does this sound right?

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

5 Responses to “Okay, found out credit score ... is this good or bad?”

  1. Broken Arrow Says:
    January 30th, 2008 at 11:05 pm 1201734327
    1201734327

    I'm no expert with credit scores, but I think that's middle-of-the-road OK. Not great, but not bad either. But it will be! The basic idea is to get it over 700 and stay there.

  2. disneysteve Says:
    January 31st, 2008 at 12:06 am 1201737975
    1201737975

    Well, the 686 is better than the 653. I've read a couple of articles in the past week or so talking about how lenders have gotten stricter with their lending guidelines and they've all said that lenders are not so ready to do business anymore with folks whose credit scores are less than 660. That puts you guys right at the borderline since one of you is over that and the other is slightly under.

    Do you now if those were actual FICO scores?

    Unless you are in immediate need of a car, I'd suggest getting your credit reports and trying to do what you can to get those scores up before taking out a new loan. You might be able to get a better rate if you can bump up those scores 20 or 30 points.

  3. MariRDH Says:
    January 31st, 2008 at 12:23 am 1201739000
    1201739000

    Also look into joining a credit union. I got my new car loan thru my CU in December - 5.0% for 60 months. I'm not sure of my current FICO score, but last time I checked was about 2 years ago and it was over 700. I would think that you would have fallen into the tier below mine at my CU which would have been 6.0% for 60 months, so see if you can qualify using just your income and they will use just your score to determine the loan rate.

    CUs almost always offer better rates because they are not out to make a ton of profit - for the people and by the people so to speak.

    I also HATE pre-payment penalties. I think they are just horrible to charge you extra because you are repaying faster than they want you to! Frown

  4. baselle Says:
    January 31st, 2008 at 04:31 am 1201753867
    1201753867

    They're a bit lukewarm with room for improvement. If you are willing to give $35 to Fair Isaac and get your credit report they probably will give you the reason why. You are also allowed to get a free credit report once/yr to get find out what they have on you...useful to get the mistakes corrected. Another free spot to figure out what it will take to get them in the 700 range is to use the credit score estimator at bankrate.com.

  5. disneysteve Says:
    January 31st, 2008 at 01:36 pm 1201786570
    1201786570

    Go to annualcreditreport.com and you can get one free report from each of the 3 bureaus once a year.

    You do need to pay to get your credit score and you should do that at myfico.com. Don't buy scores at other sites because they may not be true FICO scores.

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