Extra Credit
My husband and I have decided to drive into the confusing world of mortgages and credit again. Recently, we heard about a very good deal on a condo. We looked at it and, of course, my husband fell in love with it right away. Before I knew it we were making an offer on it. Never mind the fact that we didn’t have a pre-approval for a reasonable mortgage. I tried to bring this up, but my husband and parents didn’t seem to understand my concern.
Things started falling into place, like it was meant to happen. The place needed a new stove. Someone from church was giving away a perfectly good stove. We picked up the stove and made arrangements to store it in my sister’s garage. Then we thought we had found a good mortgage. Things were going smoothly.
Then there was a sudden kink in chain. My husband has no credit score, so we couldn’t get the mortgage. No score? How is this possible? We wondered the same thing. After several days navigating the automatic phone mazes of all three credit bureaus, my husband was able to talk to some real people and get some vague answers.
He has no credit score because he has had no activity (debt) for more than six months. This is a real conundrum. The financing people say, “Sorry, we can’t loan to you because you have no credit score.” The credit bureau says, “Sorry, you aren’t borrowing any money right now, so we can’t give you a score.” The world we live in is crazy. Last year, when we paid off his car early, we thought we were doing a good thing.
