Applying for a mortgage - Before I apply, should I get a credit card to help my score?

gedkirkham

Hello,

I am starting to look for a new property and hoping to move into a house within the next 3-6 month.

The only negative on my credit score is that I do not own a credit card.

As I am looking to apply for a mortgage soon, should I get a credit card now, or is it too late? Will applying for a credit card just put another negative on my file without providing any benefit? Or should I just bite the bullet and get one and hope in the short to medium term I get a better credit history from its usage?

Regards,
Ged

K_S

@gedkirkham When I used to work in London, I've done many FTB mortgages for clients who had no credit cards or loans and just a couple of bank accounts at most. As long as you have a sufficiently lengthy credit history, whether you have one credit card or not is very unlikely to have any material impact on your chances of getting a mortgage.

gedkirkham

K_S said:

@gedkirkham When I used to work in London, I've done many FTB mortgages for clients who had no credit cards or loans and just a couple of bank accounts at most. As long as you have a sufficiently lengthy credit history, whether you have one credit card or not is very unlikely to have any material impact on your chances of getting a mortgage.

Thank you. So do you think it would be a negative to get a credit card now?

K_S

gedkirkham said:

K_S said:

@gedkirkham When I used to work in London, I've done many FTB mortgages for clients who had no credit cards or loans and just a couple of bank accounts at most. As long as you have a sufficiently lengthy credit history, whether you have one credit card or not is very unlikely to have any material impact on your chances of getting a mortgage.

Thank you. So do you think it would be a negative to get a credit card now?

@gedkirkham I hesitate to categorically term it a 'negative'. But if you are applying for a mortgage in the next week or two, the hard check from the credit-card application may have an impact on the automated "credit-scoring" that mainstream lenders do as part of the application. But any longer than that and it's unlikely to have any significant detrimental impact. I hope that makes sense.

Carl2510

Me and my partner started looking for a property in Jan 2020, she got a credit card out in Feb having never owned one. And we applied for a mortgage in October. Wether it helped or not I doubt it.