protectionist
Diamond Member
- Oct 20, 2013
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Note: Although this forum seems to be geared to macroeconomics, and this OP is more microeconomics, this seems to be the best fit of all the choices.
It happens every hour of every business day. A home buyer calls a real estate co. wanting to buy a house. The guy has owned houses and rented apartments, and has not missed (or even been late) on a single monthly housing payment in over 40 years.
Still, he's turned down by the seller, on the basis of "credit". Huh? Sounds like this guy's credit should be 100%, with no defect at all. Problem is (and here's where the seller is costing himself sales$$), the seller is relying upon credit BUREAUS to determine eligibility for the buyer. Wrong move, Mr. Seller.
There are a number of very stupid things that go on in the USA, and this is one of the dumbest and long-lasting of them. To allow a credit bureau to determine eligibility to buy your product is close to economic suicide. I wonder how much money businesses have lost, because of the naive practice of dealing with a credit bureau. How many perfectly good sales didn't get done, because some ding-dong credit bureau held up a red flag on a very good buyer ?
Let's cut to the chase. If you want to rent a house, and you want to get paid HOUSING RENTS every month, do you examine the record of a prospective buyer to pay for jewelry ? To pay for fishing equipment ? To pay for musical instruments ? Or to pay for HOUSING ? I would think that the only one needed would be the housing payment record. Once you have the buyer as your renter, if he continues his long-standing good record on housing payment, you're doing fine. And what payment he misses on some gold bracelets or guitars or fishing rods is HIS business, and frankly, none of yours.
Nevertheless, real estaters are losing Billions$$ in sales, over time, denying good housing buyers, only due to a number (credit score) given to them by an agency whose research goes far beyond their product, clearly invalidating the potential of the prospective buyer to pay for housing and buy a house.
Although I wasn't dealing with real estate, when I owned a business, if one of my branch managers would have been costing me sales by something as stupid as this, he would have been fired.
Another aspect of this is the integrity of credit bureaus (ALL of them) just from how they are constructed. It really is impossible to validate the work of a credit bureau. That's because credit bureaus are judges who make judgements. However, unlike legal courtroom judges (who are are generally impartial), credit bureaus are NEVER impartial. They are, by definition, partial to the alleged creditors who are PAYING them.
Now just for a moment, let's transfer this process over to the legal courtroom judge and see how that works out. The counterpart to the alleged creditor for the courtroom judge would be a prosecutor (in a criminal case), or a plaintiff (in a civil case). Can you imagine a court judge presiding over a case, with everyone knowing he was being PAID by the prosecutor, or plaintiff ? It actually makes you laugh just to think about it. That judge would be scorned, disbarred, and undoubtedly JAILED (for doing what credit bureaus do every hour of every day).
Perhaps, the real crux of his OP is one simple question >> How in hell do credit bureaus (in their current manner) still exist in America ? And why weren't they abolished (or undergo MAJOR reforms) decades ago ?
It happens every hour of every business day. A home buyer calls a real estate co. wanting to buy a house. The guy has owned houses and rented apartments, and has not missed (or even been late) on a single monthly housing payment in over 40 years.
Still, he's turned down by the seller, on the basis of "credit". Huh? Sounds like this guy's credit should be 100%, with no defect at all. Problem is (and here's where the seller is costing himself sales$$), the seller is relying upon credit BUREAUS to determine eligibility for the buyer. Wrong move, Mr. Seller.
There are a number of very stupid things that go on in the USA, and this is one of the dumbest and long-lasting of them. To allow a credit bureau to determine eligibility to buy your product is close to economic suicide. I wonder how much money businesses have lost, because of the naive practice of dealing with a credit bureau. How many perfectly good sales didn't get done, because some ding-dong credit bureau held up a red flag on a very good buyer ?
Let's cut to the chase. If you want to rent a house, and you want to get paid HOUSING RENTS every month, do you examine the record of a prospective buyer to pay for jewelry ? To pay for fishing equipment ? To pay for musical instruments ? Or to pay for HOUSING ? I would think that the only one needed would be the housing payment record. Once you have the buyer as your renter, if he continues his long-standing good record on housing payment, you're doing fine. And what payment he misses on some gold bracelets or guitars or fishing rods is HIS business, and frankly, none of yours.
Nevertheless, real estaters are losing Billions$$ in sales, over time, denying good housing buyers, only due to a number (credit score) given to them by an agency whose research goes far beyond their product, clearly invalidating the potential of the prospective buyer to pay for housing and buy a house.
Although I wasn't dealing with real estate, when I owned a business, if one of my branch managers would have been costing me sales by something as stupid as this, he would have been fired.
Another aspect of this is the integrity of credit bureaus (ALL of them) just from how they are constructed. It really is impossible to validate the work of a credit bureau. That's because credit bureaus are judges who make judgements. However, unlike legal courtroom judges (who are are generally impartial), credit bureaus are NEVER impartial. They are, by definition, partial to the alleged creditors who are PAYING them.
Now just for a moment, let's transfer this process over to the legal courtroom judge and see how that works out. The counterpart to the alleged creditor for the courtroom judge would be a prosecutor (in a criminal case), or a plaintiff (in a civil case). Can you imagine a court judge presiding over a case, with everyone knowing he was being PAID by the prosecutor, or plaintiff ? It actually makes you laugh just to think about it. That judge would be scorned, disbarred, and undoubtedly JAILED (for doing what credit bureaus do every hour of every day).
Perhaps, the real crux of his OP is one simple question >> How in hell do credit bureaus (in their current manner) still exist in America ? And why weren't they abolished (or undergo MAJOR reforms) decades ago ?