supercreditman said:My mortgage prohibits second mortgages. I didn't just buy them. It's been a family biz for 85 years. I bought it 27 years ago and expanded it. The area where it is sucks. Lots of fixed income and low income population. Can't charge enough rent to break even. Can't attract higher pay individuals because of lack of high pay jobs.

SCM

Then your problem is bigger than the debt which has to be financed with credit cards. If you cannot break even, they are liabilities, not assets. It doesn't matter how much your lease takes in. What's important is the money you keep.

Sooner or later, you will have a crisis just like you described again, and you will need another $500K to keep afloat.

You need to think about a way out. It may not be 3 million equity. You will have to take a cut to sell off your money-losing properties.

I will hate you see you posting a thread like this again in 3 years.

If you don't mind sharing, what are your FICO scores?

johnqh said:SUCKISSTAPLES said:John SCM didnt post this to brag or ask people to analyze his situation, he posted bc several of us asked him how he amassed such huge #s of CREDIT CARDS....lets stick to that topic, SCM did NOT ask for any personal advice on his finances.

No, the number one question is "WHY", number two is "HOW".

For you, maybe...but we all have our own "why" reasons, so the thing we all have in common, and what we're mainly interested in here, is "how"!

I can't tell if your rich or poor. Rich I think. Anyway its an interesting read.

That is an impressive number of business credit accounts. My question is how invisible is also that business credit to potential new creditors? Is it getting reported anywhere and if so where? I've put little effort into aquiring business credit cards but given the number of mailed offers I'm starting to think it's a ripe area.

Creative definition of income appears to be part of OP's strategy (income from rental without considering offsetting mortgage interest expenses). What are creditors looking for when extending business credit (think credit cards here)? Are they relatively less sensitive to larger numbers of active lines of credit? Do they even see all your lines of credit?

Any comments OP?

Quite an interesting story.
I'd be very interested in knowing how different creditors assessed your status after they knew how many cards you applied with other creditors.
Usually, I believe creditors become wary if credit limit is greater than 1/2 of annual income. There are exceptions to this, but this is what the Chase guys told me. I believe your high income made it possible to acquire such high limits.

Sorry I left you hanging. I had to get some sleep. I've got a big day today. Wednesdays I go to 2 different car auctions in different directions from home. What I'm losing in the RE, I'm subsidizing with profits from the car sales. Some cars I buy for $150 I sell for $850. Cars I buy for $700 I sell for $2000. Cars I buy for $2000, I sell for $4000. These are best case scenarios. Some I lose on, but many of them generate some significant profit. One I bought for $2600 1 week and sold it at another auction the following week for $4250. Not bad interest on my money. No bank would give me that. I can keep things afloat if I work hard as I've been doing. The key is not to rely only on the rental income.

None creditors I have business accounts with have asked how many other business accounts I have. The banks that are skeptical and ask for a list, like Wachovia, won't give me business LOC's because of too much available credit. Except AMEX, the personal credit issuers don't ask how much credit you have. They just determine that from your credit report. However, Nasa FCU's $50K CC only reports on my EX report, so creditors that pull TU or EQ aren't aware that I have it. Many of the accounts I have were EQ pullers. I called the day after the inquiry was made to request an investigation (deletion) before I applied for another account. My EQ report always looks as though I never applied for anything. Plus, many of the new accounts I have aren't reporting on EQ due to excess soft pulls filling up the available file space. So I don't appear to have as many accounts to EQ pullers. I tried for a year to get in with Juniper and they didn't like the number of new accounts and inquiries. Guess what! They just approved me last month for the National Parks and Arbor Day. The guy asked if I wanted both or to combine the total exposure of $7.5K they were willing to extend to one card. I chose the 2 card, contrary to what most of you would have done. I'll hit them up for CLI's on both after they age a bit. Penfed was stubborn about upping my $5K limit on the CC for 2 years. Finally, a couple months ago, they went right up to the $30K max. So you see, it's actually getting easier to get approved and CLI's. Citi even did an auto CLI on the one biz CC from $15K to $18K last month when I had it just about maxxed with BT checks. I used the new space they created for more 0% BT's. The credit unions have all requested tax returns before opening the CC's. My returns clearly show a major loss. 2004 was -$25K. 2005 was -$67K. They STILL approved me. First Command Bank $10K, Agriculture FCU $5K. Agriculture denied me for a $20K app. I tried again the following week for $1K. A girl called and I went through the explaination of all the available credit and she approved my app and surprised me with a $5K limit.

SCM

Sucksstaples,

I note that you say I "screwed" creditors in the past. The commercial line of credit I started with called for cash draws upon completion of homes I borrowed to remodel. I had budget overruns at times and needed to use credit cards to cover material purchases. That bank approved the LOC for $1.345M. When I got to $1.145M they cut me off abruptly midstream when many of my CC's were heavily utilized and I supposedly had $200K in draws still pending the completion of several homes. They put me in a dire perdicament that took me years to recover from. Then came 9-11. The tenants lost jobs, moved in with relatives, transfered to other areas, or simply stuck me for rent until I spent good money after bad to forcibly and legally evict them, fix up the trashed rental and have it sit for months or years 'til I find a new resident. DW had opened an insurance policy with cash value that I didn't know about until we were in SERIOUS trouble. Then, all of the sudden, she told me about it. $23K. She was adament about not squandering her little nest egg in the crisis I was in. I took the money and called MBNA, offered $7.5K against $21K. They accepted. I offered Chase $7.5K against $21K and they accepted. I called Discover, which I had managed to recover to being current, barely, explained the situation, and got them to accept $7K against $9.1K and close the account voluntarily. Lowes had a balance of $2K which I paid in full. Oh, I asked an old retired businessman in town that I didn't know very well for advice on where I could get money in the bad shape I was in. He said, "how much do you need?" and got out his checkbook. He didn't want to see my family business fail after generations. For 3 years I owed him over $50K, paying him payments with interest each month faithfully. I just paid him off with 0% BT checks this year. He trusts me implicitly.

Yes I settled, but Chase and Discover don't hold grudges with me. I'm back in with them. MBNA is stubborn, but will soon merge with BOA. I don't know what they'll do to me once they have access to my credit history with BOA.

SCM

Sucksstaples,

No, I show the entire tax return, schedule c and e, etc. They aparaently figure I'm "handling" lots of money and that makes me responsible. Acually, the car biz is a partnership which I'm 99% owner of with an older gentleman. That's not on the same tax return. This year will be the first that I have a full year tax return from there.

SCM

OP, do you worry about being a victim of identity theft?
Your credit line can make some crook very happy.