Just got an app for one of my commercial spaces.

Two student loans, balances of $2,800 and $2,300 respectively. Both paid on time every month since 2021.

One small credit card: Discover. Balance of $800 or so. Minimum payment of $26 per month. Paid on time since 2022.

No other items, derogatory, etc.

Credit Score? 810.

This is why I say look at the info on report. While I'm happy to see she has nothing against her, I don't think two student loans and a small credit card warrant what looks like an almost flawless score. It also doesn't give me a full financial picture of this person. Just a quick tip for anyone who only looks at scores: gotta know the REASON behind them, and in this case, I can't find it. Seems inflated.

Imagine what will happen, though, if the current Administration gets their way and they remove student loans from credit reports? What would happen to this person's score? My guess is it would come back undetermined since all she has is that one small CC. Unintended consequences of Govt meddling.

Reading the entire report is so helpful and gives a much clearer picture of a person's financial integrity.

**A zero score could mean completely debt free living, and yet you get punished for what everyone should be doing**

6 x 6, we have been Dave Ramsey-ing for about 17 years and we have a zero credit score. We are building our retirement home and applied for a bridge loan to pay the builder until one of our properties sells. When the property sells, we will pay the loan off.

We chose our local, small bank where we do our business banking. Their loan officer teaches Financial Peace University and was amazed that we did not even have a credit file; he said we were ghosts. I was thrilled.

Having said that, there are drawbacks which are so infrequent that we don't count them as negative.

We needed to rent a car and it was an ordeal and although I should not have been embarrassed, I was. The employees were as kind as could be, and when they ran my credit, we came up as "gray" which evidentially indicated we were a credit risk.

They asked for other items like a paycheck stub - we are retired and receive pensions and SS, so no paycheck stubs. Credit cards? Nope. I offered to put down a $1,000 extra deposit, but they were not set up for that.

In desperation, they asked for anything that had a picture which could be used as an ID. We did have that, so they rented us the car.

We have not run into any other issues and I believe Dollar Rent a Car partners with Dave Ramsey and had we gone there, it may not have been a problem.

I agree Sid and find it annoying, i have several credit cards currently with no balances,1 truck loan and no mortgages on my credit report and zero balances on credit cards,nothing ever paid late and i have a 740 which is fine but how does she have such a good score,although she should receive credit for paying student loans through covid when she didnt have to.scores were developed so lower level employees could make an immediate decision to give credit or not.

I applaud those who have problems dealing with credit temptations and paying down that debt. For most real estate investors though, credit is merely another tool in your tool box. Use tools wisely and they can get the job repeatedly.

If anyone is is electing to have zero debt, please consider this - what is the impact of inflation on long term fixed rate debts? If inflation reduces the strength of the dollar in the future then would it also reduce the effective spending power the debt that you pushed into the future?

Please make sure you are using ALL your tools and that those tools are sharp when you need them.

On the other hand:

100% on time payment score

613 FICO score

Here are the detrimental factors as stated on credit bureau:

[68] Lack of real estate secured loan information

[43] Too many revolving accounts with high balance compared to credit limit

[4] Balances on accts too high compared to credit limits and loan amounts

[24] Too many bankcards with high balance compared to credit limit

I have seen people with higher scores that had no accounts listed as paid as agreed.

Ken, we have debit cards that work at gas pumps.

Ray, you are completely correct about inflation making fixed rate debt cheaper.

When I had units in a D class hood, I never did a credit check. It would have been a waste of money and time. All applicants either had no credit or very bad credit. All the applicants had a criminal record.

I went with those who had misdemeanors as opposed to felonies such as "endangering the welfare of a child." Of course, now all crimes here are plead down to much less so you can't go by that anymore.

Renee, a debit card skimmer at a gas pump could siphon funds out of your bank account. A search of "debit card skimmed" shows just some examples. It would take time to recover funds if the card was used on a Friday evening. With a credit card, the charge could be refuted and/or flagged, immediately leaving you without obligation to pay the fraudulent charge.

You can open an account at a credit union to obtain a credit card with no annual fee. You could then just set up the card to be paid automatically, building your credit score for rental car situations. Good luck.

PMH, I leased him a house. I see this frequently high scores when unwarranted, and low scores for lesser deficiencies.

I understand that people with mortgages are usually better risks, and asking for an increase in credit limit is a better way to handle an account than maxing it out each month. But on time payments are far, far more important.

Her score is high because of a combination of factors:

Low debt-to-income ratio

Low credit available to credit used ratio.

On time payments.

Schools don't teach this stuff. I taught my kids. When they finished school, they each had a credit score in the high 700's. It really helps, since that is how the game is played, when you want/need to finance a house or a car, or apply for a good job / get screened for a security clearance, buy insurance. Lots of things in today's society take the score into account - whether it's "fair" or not.

Back when Discover card was the only one offering cash back on purchases, I charged all purchases on my discover card.

Paid it in full every month, on time = never paid 1 cent in interest.

At the end of the year, I got about $100-120 (long time ago, don't remember exactly). Anyway, I got paid.

Now lots of them give cash back, or other things like airline miles or whatever.

And I have never paid a fee to have a card.

DJ is right, 6x6. You use credit, you don't let it use you. We keep 4 credit cards with high credit limits, also a Home Depot Commercial card and a Lowes account too. We charge every single dime we spend in life, and we pay it off AT LEAST monthly, but usually I get impatient and pay it when it gets above $100 or so ;)

Sometimes they get daily payments just because I can. I'm on here daily, I can go to my CC sites too.

We get the cash back, the 5% off, the gift cards, the other perks. I have never paid a fee to have a card and I have no idea what our interest rate is because I've never paid interest.

We got a mortgage on a paid-off house because we could and at 2.99% it's not only less than I can earn in a CD these days, but it's deductible.

Wow, I hadn't checked since yesterday's original posting. Quite a lot here..

1) Debit cards have the same protection and fraud liability as credit cards. It's on Visa's / Mastercard's websites. Read it yourself if you don't believe me. I've had mine compromised three times since starting Dave Ramsey and cutting up all our credit cards and closing the accounts. Each time, I called the bank and said, "I'm disputing this charge." My account was fully restored within 24 hours, no questions asked. If your bank doesn't do this, they suck. Get another bank.

2) Card skimmers. Most cards have "tap" feature now that eliminates this risk.

3) Pmh... no problem, just commenting on how little it takes to have a "perfect" score. Gotta read the report to know the truth. She's good, I approved her. Just thought it was funny since types of credit usually factor into the score, and she only has two of the usual 5-6 types.

4) Inflation eroding debt. Yep. Thanks to the Gubmint's inflationary monetary policy over the past 2-3 years, the real value of our mortgages dropped by about 15-20%. This is combination of the increased rents and decreased purchasing power of the dollar meaning you have to charge more dollars, which means you have greater capacity to pay down the debt that if there had been no inflation and rents had stayed stable. The root problem of the housing crisis is not enough housing in many markets; Govt is exacerbating this with inflationary monetary policy. A benefit to borrowers and owners of hard assets. A kick in the teeth to renters and folks living paycheck to paycheck or on fixed incomes that only adjust for inflation AFTER the inflation clobbers them for 6-12 months. And they claim to be "for the little guy".

I not going to go into chasing perks... that horse has been beaten to death.

Gold shoes or Mennonite dresses. Those were sure signs back in the 1990s of whose checks were going to be denied when the retail store where I worked got a new check processing system.

Gold shoes would no longer be a tell, but back then, metallic colors weren’t common. The people with gold shoes had lots of perfume/cologne, those wearing Mennonite dresses were accompanied by males with polo as shirts and khaki trousers.