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DV 2015 Oceania winners

Forgot to add, My greencard arrived within a month of entering the USA but my husbands and daughters cards say they are still in the status of pending, hopefully there are no issues with them arriving to our USA address soon. I did want to mention on the forum that my husband and my SSN's arrived no problem after ticking the box on the DS260 but my daughters didn't. ( WEIRD ) So when we were in San Francisco we just walked into the SS office in the financial district, took a number like the Motor transport office and it was all done in 10 mins, no problems at all, she just needed to take her passport with the Diversity Visa page stamped. So for anybody worrying about SSn's ( don't ) the process was easier than any social security office I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with in Australia, needless to say I only visited Centrelink once in my life and never returned, too much hassle to even bother with here in Auzzie.
 
Hershal said:
Very anti climactic our experience at JFK. We got off the plane and asked a customs guy where to go. He sent us to a room where a Woman asked for our document folders. Didn't want our X-rays at all. We sat down, she then got us to sign and form and take a finger print. Then another guy entered our passport details into a computer. Our finger prints where scanned and then we were told all good have a nice day. No questions. No nothing. Not even a green card answer or anything about the stamp. Not that we are staying permanently but just seemed very quick and easy. Felt less work doing this than actually going throug an immigration line on an esta.
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We had the same experience at LAX, the new airport looks fantastic too :)
 
AussieGemma said:
We opened a Bank of America account (in Texas) when we were travelling in the US for an extended period of time. It was very easy, not sure how different it will be for immigration.

I'm still following on here when I can. Just trying to sell all our stuff and have everything done by the 25 April for our SA, WA, NT trip. We are departing for Hawaii on 8 June which is our POE.
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Hi AussieGemma,
Sounds like you guys are on track, we are just back from our activation trip, great experience, visited everywhere from the South up to the North, only problem we have is I loved Savannah in Georgia and my hubby loved San Fran haha ( PROBLEM )
 
Hershal said:
Thats a little disappointing, not to worry, We will go back in on the 4th April and actually see if it was processed when we entered the US.

Thanks for the information regarding the banks. I will be looking at either Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo as I want a nation wide bank plus the means for international transactions.

@SusieQQQ Thats good to know about the non-secured credit cards. All we can do is go in to a branch today and ask, see what they say. Quick question though, I don't have a job i the US yet, would we get a secured credit card without a job?

I do have financials from my company back in Australia for the last 2 years with me.
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My first credit card was unsecured with Bank of America, possibly because I deposited some cash (not that much though). I was a student back then. Also it was credit crunch time.
 
Hershal said:
@Britsimon
I will definitely be getting the secure cards and starting a credit history for both myself and the wife. But do you think we need to get them now considering we are making the move over in December anyways? The bank lender told us that the SSN isn't an issue at all, they jus add it when we get it, and we don't need it to open accounts and secured cards.

My concern with getting these cards is using them and having to pay them off while in Australia. All the extra expenses involved in exchange rates, transferring money internationally, buying things with the cards etc to save a few months? Is it all worth it in the end. We would also have to set up a mail forwarding address here in FL so we can get our cards sent to Australia once they arrive. It does seem like a lot of waste of money to get them set up and use them. Making purchases would have to be in US dollars to avoid fees on international rates etc.

I know I'm sounding like a penny pincher, but I do like the fact that here in Aus I have no bad debt (Do have a mortgage though) at all no credit card debt. My Money works for me and I don't like seeing money go to fees and banks for no reason :)

Yes we want to eventually get a mortgage, but for the first year we are going to rent so we can get our feet and know we made the right choice in area. How long does a decent credit score take to build?
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Get whatever credit card you can get. Use a checking account (online banking) in US (any bank) to pay the bill on your credit card.
There is no need to use it monthly. What's important is to get you SSN reported to credit reporting agencies by the bank. So your credit history starts. Having credit history for a year, even without using credit available to you, would raise your score dramatically.

However, I do not know much about how a secured credit card gets reported with the agencies.
 
Britsimon said:
I have been here a year and my FICO score is now about 740. At that level I can get a good mortgage without being hit on points. That has worked out ok because were were able to buy some land without a mortgage and we will shortly apply for a mortgage for the build phase. However, if I had tried to line up a mortgage on a purchase to avoid a second year of rental our score would have been appreciably lower. Applying for a mortgage with a lower score could end up costing thousands of dollars in "points" and interest rate options. It's your call - but I think you are being pennywise and pound foolish.

About paying the bill. Open a bank account with B of A and stick a few hundred bucks in it. Use your secured card to buy a book on Amazon each month - $10. Setup the B of A account to automatically pay the CC bill in full each month.
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I would say that lenders do not rely on the score so much when financing a house or even a car. One can have 730 score with only one 1000 dollar credit card for just having it for a year (my experience). The score looks good, but the profile is too thin for the creditors to consider it low risk. That can be overcome with a down payment, of course.
Again, my experience is based on good old post credit crunch times, I would imagine it is easier now to get financed.
 
CC1 said:
Thanks for sharing that info Britsimon, we are just back from our roadtrip/activation trip, got our wells fargo secured credit cards and everyday bankcards all set up and activated them online last night, now we are back in Aussie, we plan to do just what you suggested with Amazon, buying an e book every month for the next 10 months to establish a good credit history, my ? to you is, do you think that is enough to establish a good history or can you recommend anything else we can do, we also plan to do the same as yourself as in buying land when we go back in December this year cash after selling our australian property and then getting a mortgage to build in the USA after we have secured good work etc.
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The point of the credit card thing is just to get a record. At first you spend 2 or 3 months with a "thin file" and having some transaction will help - then also the age of the oldest account is useful as that is one of the factors for credit. The reason I suggest using the card is that having some transaction seems to change the way the card is reported. My wife had a credit card and wasn't using it - but started getting better scores when I asked her to use it a little. Also - the credit scores look at how much of your limit you are using. So - using $10 on a $300 limit card is 3% utilized - which is much better than 90% utilized.
 
Sensei-san said:
Get whatever credit card you can get. Use a checking account (online banking) in US (any bank) to pay the bill on your credit card.
There is no need to use it monthly. What's important is to get you SSN reported to credit reporting agencies by the bank. So your credit history starts. Having credit history for a year, even without using credit available to you, would raise your score dramatically.

However, I do not know much about how a secured credit card gets reported with the agencies.
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Secured credit cards get reported just the same - at least the big bank ones. It is reported as secured - but that does not make any difference.

Good site on credit cards here:-

http://www.beverlyharzog.com/fico-score-and-secured-credit-cards/
 
Sensei-san said:
I would say that lenders do not rely on the score so much when financing a house or even a car. One can have 730 score with only one 1000 dollar credit card for just having it for a year (my experience). The score looks good, but the profile is too thin for the creditors to consider it low risk. That can be overcome with a down payment, of course.
Again, my experience is based on good old post credit crunch times, I would imagine it is easier now to get financed.
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Pretty much anyone can get a mortgage - the difference is what terms you can get. Since I am getting a construction loan in the jumbo range the lenders have various guidance rules - and it helps to widen the options by overcoming more of the rules. There are at least two programs that require credit scores of 740 and above for the best terms. I have a deposit since I have bought the dirt with cash - no I just want the bank to finance most of the construction cost - and I will end up with about 50% LTV. So - my goal is about getting the very best deals available.
 
CC1 said:
Forgot to add, My greencard arrived within a month of entering the USA but my husbands and daughters cards say they are still in the status of pending, hopefully there are no issues with them arriving to our USA address soon. I did want to mention on the forum that my husband and my SSN's arrived no problem after ticking the box on the DS260 but my daughters didn't. ( WEIRD ) So when we were in San Francisco we just walked into the SS office in the financial district, took a number like the Motor transport office and it was all done in 10 mins, no problems at all, she just needed to take her passport with the Diversity Visa page stamped. So for anybody worrying about SSn's ( don't ) the process was easier than any social security office I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with in Australia, needless to say I only visited Centrelink once in my life and never returned, too much hassle to even bother with here in Auzzie.
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That SSA does not sounds typical!!
 
Hershal said:
@EmilyW
I was looking at HSBC aswell, at least for my company accounts as I still need to do business in Australia as well so I will definitely look into it.
We went into a Bank of America branch this morning to get some information and look at opening bank accounts and getting a secured credit card. All we need is our passport and a US address. Don't need our SSN as they can just add that later. Was told e could put $300 deposit down and get $300 secured credit card straight away. We weighed up doing this and in the end decided that getting a card now wouldn't really benefit us. We figure and if some one can correct me what would we need a good credit score immediately when moving to the US?

  • Credit score for renting a property would may be an issue, but we have no problem with paying 3 months in advance rent and bond. Hopefully this is an option for people with no credit
  • We would be purchasing a car with cash
  • Phone can be prepaid and when it comes to internet access we can wait or pay a deposit if needed to get it.
Is there anything else I am missing here that we definitely need a credit score for? We figured that trying to pouches things on our secured card and then sending dollars over to the US to pay it off every month would be costly and not get much ahead.
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We found that landlords don't seem to want to take too much in deposit... but the two houses we were looking at, both wanted to see funds worth around 6 months rent in a US bank account in lieu of a credit record. Bear in mind that 3 months deposit is not really an hugely unusually large amount as many we saw ask 1-2 months rent as security deposit anyway. Plus your first month in advance of course.

Btw when we got our credit cards, although had no credit history we had kept decent balances in our accounts for a while. I'm not sure they would give the same to a brand new account with no history at all.

I know the feeling about going from being completely debt free to 'needing' debt and it seems wrong! But use it where you can so make it work for you, eg mortgage tax deductibility.
 
I think we will go and get these secured cards and buy $10 a month. I guess every little bit helps. Just for anyone else thats looking at doing the same thing. The bank accounts we looked at require we have a minimum of $1500USD in the account each month to defer the $12 monthly account fee. So just need to make sure you have that extra cash that you don't need for a while.

Ill have to set up a mail forwarding address the next couple of days so that we can get everything sorted before we leave. We looked up everywhere regarding changing address being a negative effect on your credit score but every source says no, directly it does not. The only way that changing address will affect your score is if you don't receive a bill or payment option in the mail because you forgot to forward your mail. That in turn will affect your score as you will have late payments etc.

We are looking at maybe buying some land first too but we haven't decided what to do with our Australian Property. We are worried a little about the security of a house in the US as an investment. Thinking of maybe keeping the one in Australia too just to be safe. So soo soon much research to do.
I always told myself that we were not going to get the green card, and that it wasn't going to work. So I never looked into anything. Then that faithful day in march where we got told "ALL GOOD, VISA APPROVED" rocked our world and now everything has become so real.

@SusieQQQ

Needing "debt" is a different concept like you said. Will take us a while to get used to it. When we were asked by the bank lender yesterday what we use our credit card for we said "emergencies" She asked what limit we had and what we owed, she was very surprised to see that it was a $5000 limit with a $0 balance.

She also tildes that none 100% knows how the reporting to credit agencies work. I don't know how much truth in that there is but it seems the norm here.
 
Hershal said:
Needing "debt" is a different concept like you said. Will take us a while to get used to it. When we were asked by the bank lender yesterday what we use our credit card for we said "emergencies" She asked what limit we had and what we owed, she was very surprised to see that it was a $5000 limit with a $0 balance.
.
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I've long used a card for convenience (plus the points you get) but always paid off in full every month. This approach works well in the US too except that one can't use too much of the card limit or it reflects adversely, so I am paying off just about every week rather than every month, lol. Got something like $180 cash back in my first couple of months with no charges on the card...can't really sneeze at that either!!
 
SusieQQQ said:
I've long used a card for convenience (plus the points you get) but always paid off in full every month. This approach works well in the US too except that one can't use too much of the card limit or it reflects adversely, so I am paying off just about every week rather than every month, lol. Got something like $180 cash back in my first couple of months with no charges on the card...can't really sneeze at that either!!
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Same here. I try to keep utilization at 10% or less - but given I don't have very high limits yet, that means paying often. I have a discover card for cashback - not bad. 5% on restaurants this quarter!
 
Britsimon said:
Same here. I try to keep utilization at 10% or less - but given I don't have very high limits yet, that means paying often. I have a discover card for cashback - not bad. 5% on restaurants this quarter!
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Excuse my ignorance but what is a discover card and do Wells Fargo use them?
 
Speaking of credit scores, can anyone tell me where I can look up my US credit score for free? What's the deal here?
 
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