As a mortgage loan officer, I wish no one used debit cards. A debit card is the enemy of a home buyer. I’ll give you two good reasons why.
Debit Cards Expose Your Private Life
- Do you value your privacy? If you’ve been using a debit card, you have just shot your privacy all to pieces.
When you apply for a home loan, lenders require two months’ bank statements to verify assets. People who use a credit card for their purchases have short bank statements: one page, maybe two. There are the deposits and only a few withdrawals. All their purchases for the month are covered by one payment (or two) to a Visa or MasterCard. What did they purchase? No one knows and no one cares. No one is passing personal judgment.
Reviewing the statements is quick and easy. They are living within their means. Their balance is stable or growing. No overdrafts, no bounced checks. Everyone is happy.
On the other hand, people who use debit display every single purchase. We see how many times they bought a Netflix movie, how many lattes they drank, when they gambled at the casino, how often they did the fast food drive-through, where they shop for clothes, where they buy their underwear, on and on and on for eight, nine, ten pages. There is no privacy whatsoever. Reviewing all that is tedious and time-consuming. If they had used one Visa card, they would have retained their privacy and saved me and the underwriter some good time.
Debit Cards Don’t Help Your Credit Score
When your use your credit card responsibly (keep a low balance and pay in full each month), your credit score gains points. With a debit card, you get zero points, zero influence on your credit score.
If you’re a young person or recent immigrant and you’ve used only debit, you will have a blank credit report and no score. How will you qualify for a mortgage to buy a house with no history of using money responsibly? If a lender is going to give you several hundred thousand dollars, they first want to see that you can handle credit properly.
Too Many People Using Debit when they should be using credit. Please help get the word out by sharing this on social media, because most young adults do not realize these facts. Thank you!
