Archive for January, 2009
Card Comparison: Easy to Get Credit Cards that Help Build Credit History
If you have limited credit history or for some reason your credit was impaired, you need to build or re-build your credit history, because that’s the only way for you get credit especially under current tough credit crunch situations and new credit card rules (its impact). According to this article, although there are multiple factors that make up the credit score calculation, payment to debt on time takes the most weight, so what you need is a history of paying bills on time. Here is a list of easy-to-get credit cards that do exactly that: report your payment to credit bureaus. Some of them may not be the ideal choice, since they charge high fees and even has no grace-period, so be careful when you use these cards:
| Card Name | Pros | Cons | |
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New Millennium Bank Secured Platinum Visa® |
Easy to get: no credit check; Build credit: reports to credit bureaus | Requires deposit as collateral; No grace period; Annual Membership Fee: $59 |
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New Millennium Bank Secured Platinum MasterCard® |
Easy to get: no credit check; Build credit: reports to credit bureaus | Requires deposit as collateral; No grace period; Annual Membership Fee: $59; Opening Fee: $99.95 |
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Continental Finance Gold MasterCard® |
Build credit: report to credit bureaus; No requirement of collaterals; Instant Approval; 25 days Grace Period | Opening Fee: $175; Monthly Fee: $15 |
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Continental Finance MasterCard® |
Build credit: report to credit bureaus; No requirement of collaterals; Instant Approval; 25 days Grace Period | Opening Fee: $200; Monthly Fee: $15 |
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Tribute Gold MasterCard® Credit Card |
Build credit: report to credit bureaus; No requirement of collaterals | Annual Fee: $150 ($300 card); Monthly Fee: $9 ($300 card), $19 ($70 card) |
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American DreamCardTM Platinum MasterCard® |
Build credit: report to credit bureaus; No requirement of collaterals; 20 days grace period | None |
Important Disclaimer: the credit cards information in this post were accurate as of the date of publishing, some or all of the card programs may be discontinued, their terms may be changed after wards.
Credit Card Q&A: What does New Credit Card Rules Mean to You
The fact that Federal Reserve approved new credit card rules means that, before it’s too late, it’s time now to apply for balance transfer credit cards with low interest and low transaction fee.
Federal Reserve released a set of new credit card rules that will take effect starting July 2010. Based on these new rules, credit card companies must:
- Raise interest rates only on new credit cards and future purchases or advances, not on current balances.
- Give you 45 days’ notice before any changes are made to the terms of an account, including slapping on a higher penalty rate for missing payments or paying bills late. Under current rules, companies in most cases give 15 days notice.
- Apply any payment above the minimum to the part of the balance with the highest interest rate.
Credit card companies must not:
- Place unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time, such as 21 days, to pay.
- Place too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account.
- Unfairly compute balances in a computing tactic known as double-cycle billing.
- Unfairly add security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making it available.
- Make deceptive offers of credit.
- Charge upfront fees for subprime cards (high-interest cards for people with low credit scores, typically with $500 credit limits) that exceed half of the credit-card limit, or require full repayment in less than a year.
The rules were approved by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration on Dec. 18th, 2008.
For consumers, these rules will protect those debt-ridden, cash-strapped from being charged sky-high interest rates by credit card companies. They will also prevent consumers to fall in the trap of getting a 0% Balance Transfer card, but actually ended up paying high interest for that balance because credit card companies allocate payment to low interest balance tiers first. Finally, credit card companies will be prevented from taking negative actions such as “universal default” against consumers.
For credit card companies, these rules will definitely shrink the profitable margin of credit card industry, since they eliminate many levers that they could use to bring profit and prevent credit risk: such as raising interests without notice, payment allocation, charging late fees etc.
All in all, while the new rules bring more power to consumer side of the game, the credit card companies may respond by cutting credit card offerings. While consumers may have better than before leverage to get more transparent terms and be treated more in expectation, credit may not be as easy to obtain as before. After all, there will still be more than a year before these rules take effect, which gives people enough time to digest the impact and take action, but one thing is certain: more and more people are taking actions to be more and more financial disciplined.
Important Disclaimer: the credit cards information in this post were accurate as of the date of publishing, some or all of the card programs may be discontinued, their terms may be changed after wards.
Mortgage Rate at 50 year low, Refinance now or wait?
0 Year Fixed Rate mortgage rate was at 5.19% last week (Dec. 18th), 50 year low point, previous low was 5.24% in mid-2003. The rate continued to drop thereafter, on Dec. 28th, the 30 year fixed mortgage rate reached a new low 5.10%, according to Freddie Mac.
30 year fixed mortgage rate history from 1971 to 2009
The 30 year fixed mortgage rate history since 1971 experienced these stages:
- from 1971 to 1978, rates were between 7.5% to 10%, but essentially rising
- from 1978 to 1986, rates were above 10%, once touched 18%
- from 1986 to 1990, rate hovered around 10%
- from 1990 to 2002, rates were between 10% and 5.9%, but essentially dropping
- from 2002 to Nov. 2008, rates were below 6.9%, as low as 5.24% in mid-2003
Even though it’s at historical low now, some rate experts predict it will drop to 4.5% in early 2009, but if you can’t wait, check out this tool to start refinance:
Jan. 22, 2009 update: It turned out that the lowest point of the rate was 4.96%, not 4.5% some experts predicted before, the rate has rebounded and now in the week of Jan. 22nd, it’s at 5.12%, the Jan. 22nd spot rate for 30 year fixed is 5.41%.
Important Disclaimer: the credit cards information in this post were accurate as of the date of publishing, some or all of the card programs may be discontinued, their terms may be changed after wards.
