@jamesdwi wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:We are refinancing our mortgage and want to "clean up" our credit score. We maintain a revolving monthly balance of only 15 percent of our three credit cards limits and asked Capital One to lower their card limit down from 15k to 8k, but they refused. Short of closing the account, we are wondering what to do next.
Once again Capital One provides excellent customer service.... they did the best thing despite the customers intention.
@Anonymous wrote:Our credit union send us a courtesy copy of our credit score - same score for each of us. It is from Credstar. Your credit score 793; Source Experian; Understanding your credit score, range 320 - 844; Key factors that adversely affected your credit score: Experian Fair Isaac Redeveloped (FICA 2), 1) Amount owed on accounts is too high; 2) Ratio of balance to limit on bank revolving or other rev accounts too high; 3) Length of time revolving accounts have been established. My responses; 1) Our monthly debt payments are about 50 percent of our monthly gross income and our mortgage principal balance is about 50 percent of the value of our home; we also have a home equity balance of $11k that will be paid off in two years; 2) The only revolving balances and limits are the 3 credit cards previously discussed; 3) We refinanced with a 20-year mortgage 3 years ago when we had 22 years left on our 30-year mortgage; home equity loan is 3 years old and have had all 3 credit cards for at least 6 years. I think that simply put reasons regardless of the FICA score.
This is a FAKO score, I wouldn't pay any mind to it. The public has not been able to buy an EX FICO since 2009. Unless you:
-bank with a CU in PA (PSECU)
-app for an AMEX card or other prime lender and get less then the best APR and they send you a score from EX.
-Mortgage app
It's very unlikely wherever you got your EX score it is a FICO.
@LS2982 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Our credit union send us a courtesy copy of our credit score - same score for each of us. It is from Credstar. Your credit score 793; Source Experian; Understanding your credit score, range 320 - 844; Key factors that adversely affected your credit score: Experian Fair Isaac Redeveloped (FICA 2), 1) Amount owed on accounts is too high; 2) Ratio of balance to limit on bank revolving or other rev accounts too high; 3) Length of time revolving accounts have been established. My responses; 1) Our monthly debt payments are about 50 percent of our monthly gross income and our mortgage principal balance is about 50 percent of the value of our home; we also have a home equity balance of $11k that will be paid off in two years; 2) The only revolving balances and limits are the 3 credit cards previously discussed; 3) We refinanced with a 20-year mortgage 3 years ago when we had 22 years left on our 30-year mortgage; home equity loan is 3 years old and have had all 3 credit cards for at least 6 years. I think that simply put reasons regardless of the FICA score.
This is a FAKO score, I wouldn't pay any mind to it. The public has not been able to buy an EX FICO since 2009. Unless you:
-bank with a CU in PA (PSECU)
-app for an AMEX card or other prime lender and get less then the best APR and they send you a score from EX.
-Mortgage app
It's very unlikely wherever you got your EX score it is a FICO.
Could well be a FICO score. There are actually lots of them. It could also be some sort of customized FICO score. If it wasn't they couldn't use the Fair Isaac name legally. Mortgage score providers to CUs do have access to EX FICO scores.
However, nothing in the list suggests that reducing CLs would help. Quite the contrary. It would adversely affect your ratios. The advice not to reduce CLs is good advice.
You have the opposite problem of most people with Cap One cards 
most people are on here wanting to know how to get CLI's ;D
most people are on here wanting to know how to get CLI's ;D
@Anonymous wrote:Our credit union send us a courtesy copy of our credit score - same score for each of us. It is from Credstar. Your credit score 793; Source Experian; Understanding your credit score, range 320 - 844; Key factors that adversely affected your credit score: Experian Fair Isaac Redeveloped (FICA 2), 1) Amount owed on accounts is too high; 2) Ratio of balance to limit on bank revolving or other rev accounts too high; 3) Length of time revolving accounts have been established. My responses; 1) Our monthly debt payments are about 50 percent of our monthly gross income and our mortgage principal balance is about 50 percent of the value of our home; we also have a home equity balance of $11k that will be paid off in two years; 2) The only revolving balances and limits are the 3 credit cards previously discussed; 3) We refinanced with a 20-year mortgage 3 years ago when we had 22 years left on our 30-year mortgage; home equity loan is 3 years old and have had all 3 credit cards for at least 6 years. I think that simply put reasons regardless of the FICA score.
Mike, you are misreading the reasons given. First off, I don't see anything there that says you need to reduce your credit limits. In fact, the direct opposite. Also, there are always reasons given by FICO for your score not being perfect. Some of those reasons are actionable items. Sometimes there are not. Sometimes they just don't really mean anything as only a perfect score has no reasons but does not exist in reality. My wife for example had over 800 FICO and 5-6 reasons for the reduction in score. Kind of a joke. Fact is 760+ FICO will get you best rate with every lender assuming other things check out so you only need to get over that 760 mark. In any case here are some comments on your score:
1) Amount owed on accounts is too high: It just means you have high balances on your trade lines. It has nothing to do with your income as FICO knows nothing about income and does not take that into account. You can't do anything on installment loans easily so dont worry about it. For your revolving lines, see my notes below.
2) Ratio of balance to limit on bank revolving or other rev accounts too high: Your reported balances vs your credit limits are too high. This is basically saying the opposite of what you were planning on doing. You want higher credit limits to offset balances.
3) Length of time revolving accounts have been established: Basically saying you haven't have your credit cards long enough. Revolving credit does not refer to installment loans (mortgage, auto loan, etc.). Nothing you can do here as you can't make your credit cards age faster. Just don't apply for any credit cards which will enhance this problem.
As for my notes on point 1 and 2: Ideal balances FICO wise is 1 credit card reporting between 1-9% (ideal is slightly different for everyone) of both the card and total available revolving credit limit and the rest of your cards reporting 0. You need to search and read in this forum about credit card utilization and reported utilization. Credit card issuers typically report balance to CRAs once a month. Most report the balance around the statement date and what the outstanding balance is on that date. However not all card issuers do so. The point is you need to pay down your outstanding balance so that it reports to the CRA what you want it to report. In the case of credit cards that report on statement date, that means paying off the card even before they generate a statement and due date for the outstanding amount.
LIMITS IN CARD DESCRIPTIONS
@Crashem wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Our credit union send us a courtesy copy of our credit score - same score for each of us. It is from Credstar. Your credit score 793; Source Experian; Understanding your credit score, range 320 - 844; Key factors that adversely affected your credit score: Experian Fair Isaac Redeveloped (FICA 2), 1) Amount owed on accounts is too high; 2) Ratio of balance to limit on bank revolving or other rev accounts too high; 3) Length of time revolving accounts have been established. My responses; 1) Our monthly debt payments are about 50 percent of our monthly gross income and our mortgage principal balance is about 50 percent of the value of our home; we also have a home equity balance of $11k that will be paid off in two years; 2) The only revolving balances and limits are the 3 credit cards previously discussed; 3) We refinanced with a 20-year mortgage 3 years ago when we had 22 years left on our 30-year mortgage; home equity loan is 3 years old and have had all 3 credit cards for at least 6 years. I think that simply put reasons regardless of the FICA score.
Mike, you are misreading the reasons given. First off, I don't see anything there that says you need to reduce your credit limits. In fact, the direct opposite. Also, there are always reasons given by FICO for your score not being perfect. Some of those reasons are actionable items. Sometimes there are not. Sometimes they just don't really mean anything as only a perfect score has no reasons but does not exist in reality. My wife for example had over 800 FICO and 5-6 reasons for the reduction in score. Kind of a joke. Fact is 760+ FICO will get you best rate with every lender assuming other things check out so you only need to get over that 760 mark. In any case here are some comments on your score:
1) Amount owed on accounts is too high: It just means you have high balances on your trade lines. It has nothing to do with your income as FICO knows nothing about income and does not take that into account. You can't do anything on installment loans easily so dont worry about it. For your revolving lines, see my notes below.
2) Ratio of balance to limit on bank revolving or other rev accounts too high: Your reported balances vs your credit limits are too high. This is basically saying the opposite of what you were planning on doing. You want higher credit limits to offset balances.
3) Length of time revolving accounts have been established: Basically saying you haven't have your credit cards long enough. Revolving credit does not refer to installment loans (mortgage, auto loan, etc.). Nothing you can do here as you can't make your credit cards age faster. Just don't apply for any credit cards which will enhance this problem.
As for my notes on point 1 and 2: Ideal balances FICO wise is 1 credit card reporting between 1-9% (ideal is slightly different for everyone) of both the card and total available revolving credit limit and the rest of your cards reporting 0. You need to search and read in this forum about credit card utilization and reported utilization. Credit card issuers typically report balance to CRAs once a month. Most report the balance around the statement date and what the outstanding balance is on that date. However not all card issuers do so. The point is you need to pay down your outstanding balance so that it reports to the CRA what you want it to report. In the case of credit cards that report on statement date, that means paying off the card even before they generate a statement and due date for the outstanding amount.
Excellent discussion and breakdown of the three negative score factors. I wonder if the OP's mortgage provider just gave out the wrong info. It's kind of an industry mantra that mortgage providers don't like to see too much available credit.
I believe their internal models may factor in risk of borrower use of available CC credit. It's also possible that the mortgage provider is fully aware that decreasing CLs would, other things being equal, drop FICO scores a small amount but would increase the chance of getting the application approved because of the lower exposure if the credit cards were maxed out. Who knows. My best guess is that somewhere the broker heard that too high CC limits represented increased risk and incorrectly took that to mean that FICO scores would improve if the customer reduced their CLs. If so, big error.