Building Credit for First Time Homebuyers

Looking to Build Credit? (notice: referral links are below. I may earn a referral fee if you use my links)

• Self.inc has a great program for a savings & credit card account with no hard inquiry. You start with a credit builder account (installment loan) and after a few payments, they issue a credit card letting you access the funds that you have already paid into the loan. So you get BOTH an installment loan AND a credit card reported to the credit reporting agencies with the SAME money.
  
  
• CreditStrong also has a personal installment loan program that works like a savings account. They secure the "proceeds" of your loan into a CD and you make payments each month. Once the loan is paid in full, they unlock the CD and you receive your funds. This is a GREAT way to build credit while saving for a downpayment. Plus you can cancel anytime and get all of your payments back (minus interest).
  
  
• Discover IT Card has a secured card option that you can start with as little as $200. Although they do perform a hard credit inquiry, this is, in my opinion, the BEST secured card you can get. Because, after 8 months of using your card and making monthly payments on time, they convert the card into a $1,000 unsecured Discover Card. Of course this may change, but at the time I wrote this page, that program was still available.