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Hi everyone, I'm very excited to join this forum - seems like an unbelievable wealth of information. I'm obviously not up to speed with everyone else's knowledge. My goal is to purchase the condo I'm currently living in next August, with the best mortgage rate possible. My credit score isn't great due to high utilization, which I'm currently working on bringing down. Credit Karma (also recently joined that) says my TransUnion score is 674, and FreeCreditReport.com (been a member of that for many years) says my Experian score is 676. Don't know about my Equifax. Here are my cards:
credit union Visa card from high school - $200, just requested a CLI and was denied (resulted in HP)
Citi Thank You - $300, just closed it yesterday b/c CLI was denied last month (SP only)
Capital One Platinum - $500
credit union Visa card associated with university - $1500
Citi Platinum Select - $2000
Chase Amazon Rewards - $3300
Bank Americard Cash Rewards Visa Signature - $5000
Victoria's Secret Angel - $3650
Express - $2530
New York & Company - $2400
Old Navy - $1500
Ann Taylor - $850
JCrew - $250
Macy's - $600
GE CareCredit - $4000
GE Ashley Furniture - $2000
Yesterday, I went on what is apparently called an "app spree":
Chase Sapphire (not Preferred) - approved for $5000
Amex Blue - approved for $1000
Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage World MasterCard - denied
US Bank Platinum Visa - app still processing
I could benefit from all of your expertise: should I close anything? Request CLI on anything? Submit any new apps? Garden? (I love that term!). My current utilization is about 47% (still paying off my wedding from two years ago), but coming down every month. My salary: $110,000. DH's salary: $93,000. DH has Citi Forward ($4000) and Discover ($6000). I'm an authorized user on the Discover, but not the Citi Forward. I have substantial student loans from law school. No late payments on anything. My goal is the best possibile credit score by July 2014. Advice???
@pizza1 wrote:
FYI..... One of the mods (moderators), might move this post to the "mortgage " section too. It border lines both credit and mortgage stick around here and you'll find answers that you need!! We have a lot of people who have great advice because they have "been there, done that", and also because they are just freaking loaded with knowledge.
Again, welcome!!
Grin, this one's more about credit cards and making things look pretty which is different than attempting to get a mortgage underwritten which is what the topics in Mortgage are usually about.
Regardless, welcome to the forum catlady!
@starry1 wrote:
Yes,,no apps at least six months prior to apping for a mortgage. You have sufficient credit already. First you should get real fico scores from this site, all the scores you mentioned are fakos and may not necessarily give you a good picture of where you are starting from. Paying down your utilization and checking your reports for any baddies that might be reporting will maximize your scores. Welcome to the forums and good luck with the mortgage.
@starry1 wrote:
Yes,,no apps at least six months prior to apping for a mortgage. You have sufficient credit already. First you should get real fico scores from this site, all the scores you mentioned are fakos and may not necessarily give you a good picture of where you are starting from. Paying down your utilization and checking your reports for any baddies that might be reporting will maximize your scores. Welcome to the forums and good luck with the mortgage.
Well, get the EX score from this site. Don't think there is much value for mortgage purposes in the TU sold here.
Thanks for the welcome!