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Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...

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tcbofade
Super Contributor

Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...

DW has mediocre credit scores.  Mostly due to high utilization.  (65% or so).  I am in the process of making sure that no individual account reports over 89% as of 01 July.  The only negative information on her credit reports should fall off in June.  With nothing maxed out, no derogs, and no inquries in the last year (EX and EQ), one inquiry eight months ago on TU, what is her next step?

 

Do we try for CLIs on existing accounts, or apply for new accounts?

 

Seems to me that when requesting soft pull cli's, lenders tend to use dated credit reports, as opposed to pulling a fresh soft pull.

 

There are certainly lenders that will open new accounts for her in the mid 600s, but nothing better than what she has, so that seems wasteful and self defeating.

 

Short of winning the lottery, what's the best way (most likely to succeed = best way) to lower her utilization?

 

Ask for CLIs, or apply for new accounts?

 

Please and thank you.

02/01/24 Fico 8: EX 757, EQ 803, TU 783.
Fico 9: EX 760 12/16/23, EQ 790 02/04/24, TU No idea.

Zero percent financing is where the devil lives...
Message 1 of 33
32 REPLIES 32
jamesdwi
Valued Contributor

Re: Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...

If she has accounts from Syncrony bank, Walmart store/MC card, Sam's Club, Lowes Hardware, she should deffiently call or chat and request a CLI, its a SP.  and try any SP CLI's options she has availible to here, and pay down the high UTL cards.   Don't apply for new cards or take any HP's yet. Do all the work you can to get the cards down and her score up. Then check out personal loan,  if you can get her scores to the 700's, check out Marcus Loans by Goldman Sach's.  They approved me for $30,000 with 5.99% interest.  Loan companies are hyper sensitive to INQ's and new trade lines, and you raise your APR for any loan you do apply for. 

 

 

Yes the 5.99% is more than 0% offers, but it feels better to do it once and be over than juggling BT's offers and moving them around, each time taking a 2-5% hit to move it to another card. 

 

Also the two of you should take a look at why her UTL is so high, because if you don't work on fixing the cause, the situation will the same in 6 months, except the numbers will be higher. 

 

Cards: Chase Southwest 20k & CSR 17k & CSP 10k & FNBO 30k Oregon Duck 5k, & AMEX BCP 32.5k & Amex Magnet 15k&amg; Hilton Surpass 7.5k & Delta Gold 12k & Zync NPSL, Fidelity AMEX 17k Commerce5.9k & Cash Forward 7.5k & Sams Club MC 20k, Paypal Extras MC 10k, Paypal Credit 7.25k CapOne Venture 15k, QS 2.5k, QS 750, Amazon 10k, Walmart 10k, Citi Simplicity 18k, Discover IT 23k and a nice stack of store cards.
Landmarkcu Personal Loan 10k
Message 2 of 33
tcbofade
Super Contributor

Re: Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...


@jamesdwi wrote:

If she has accounts from Syncrony bank, Walmart store/MC card, Sam's Club, Lowes Hardware, she should deffiently call or chat and request a CLI, its a SP.  and try any SP CLI's options she has availible to here, and pay down the high UTL cards.   Don't apply for new cards or take any HP's yet. Do all the work you can to get the cards down and her score up. Then check out personal loan,  if you can get her scores to the 700's, check out Marcus Loans by Goldman Sach's.  They approved me for $30,000 with 5.99% interest.  Loan companies are hyper sensitive to INQ's and new trade lines, and you raise your APR for any loan you do apply for. 

 

 

Yes the 5.99% is more than 0% offers, but it feels better to do it once and be over than juggling BT's offers and moving them around, each time taking a 2-5% hit to move it to another card. 

 

Also the two of you should take a look at why her UTL is so high, because if you don't work on fixing the cause, the situation will the same in 6 months, except the numbers will be higher. 

 


Thank you, James.  Actually, the two causes fixed themselves some time ago...we ARE making progress, and her utilization is DOWN to 65%....lol...

 

She's got a dozen or so "soft pull CLI" accounts... walmart, lowes, capone (x3), but when she requests CLI's, they use the last report that they have on file... 30, 60, or 90 days old.  Do you think if she asks via chat that they'll pull a fresh report?

02/01/24 Fico 8: EX 757, EQ 803, TU 783.
Fico 9: EX 760 12/16/23, EQ 790 02/04/24, TU No idea.

Zero percent financing is where the devil lives...
Message 3 of 33
jamesdwi
Valued Contributor

Re: Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...

Congradulations on figure it out and paying it down, I have also came to the same place.  I paid about $7,000  down before I took out the loan, 65% UTL is a bit high, i was only at 16% UTL, see my post http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Personal-Finance/Marcus-Loan-Scarily-simple/m-p/4959442#M17204 for more details. 

 

 

 

Cards: Chase Southwest 20k & CSR 17k & CSP 10k & FNBO 30k Oregon Duck 5k, & AMEX BCP 32.5k & Amex Magnet 15k&amg; Hilton Surpass 7.5k & Delta Gold 12k & Zync NPSL, Fidelity AMEX 17k Commerce5.9k & Cash Forward 7.5k & Sams Club MC 20k, Paypal Extras MC 10k, Paypal Credit 7.25k CapOne Venture 15k, QS 2.5k, QS 750, Amazon 10k, Walmart 10k, Citi Simplicity 18k, Discover IT 23k and a nice stack of store cards.
Landmarkcu Personal Loan 10k
Message 4 of 33
SouthJamaica
Mega Contributor

Re: Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...


@tcbofade wrote:

DW has mediocre credit scores.  Mostly due to high utilization.  (65% or so).  I am in the process of making sure that no individual account reports over 89% as of 01 July.  The only negative information on her credit reports should fall off in June.  With nothing maxed out, no derogs, and no inquries in the last year (EX and EQ), one inquiry eight months ago on TU, what is her next step?

 

Do we try for CLIs on existing accounts, or apply for new accounts?

 

Seems to me that when requesting soft pull cli's, lenders tend to use dated credit reports, as opposed to pulling a fresh soft pull.

 

There are certainly lenders that will open new accounts for her in the mid 600s, but nothing better than what she has, so that seems wasteful and self defeating.

 

Short of winning the lottery, what's the best way (most likely to succeed = best way) to lower her utilization?

 

Ask for CLIs, or apply for new accounts?

 

Please and thank you.


You shouldn't apply for new accounts.

 

There's no harm in asking for soft pull CLI's but I don't think she's going to get them.

 

The only real way to decrease her utilization is to pay stuff down.


Total revolving limits 741200 (620700 reporting) FICO 8: EQ 701 TU 704 EX 685

Message 5 of 33
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...

Applying for (and receiving) new credit and obtaining CLIs is something that should be done when you're at 29% or less utilization.  Can it be done above that number?  Sure, but with far less favorable results and results that grow increasingly less favorable as utilization increases.  At 65% utilization, there aren't may lenders out there that would easily hand over new credit and it's doubtful that any really would extend additional credit, as the "red flag" has already been raised.

 

As SJ indicated above, paying down that utilization is the next step and what really needs to be done before CLIs and/or new credit can be obtained.

Message 6 of 33
Revelate
Moderator Emeritus

Re: Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...

Hey T,

 

If you have some non-trivial lines which I suspect you do given how long both of us have been on this forum, why not add her as an AU to one or two and see if they count (FICO 8, they will on older models and there's plenty of CU's pulling those) and therefore dumps her revolving utilization down as it's almost always faster to shed CC debt with a higher credit score... simply more options.




        
Message 7 of 33
happypill
Valued Contributor

Re: Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...

If it is purely for the sake of utilization and scores are in the mid 600s, then some some SP SCT store cards could be useful.

 

Before people freak out because and overreact, yes paying down is the best strategy but that doesn't seem possible in the near term.  Yes, getting a lot of store cards is a bad idea.  Yes, getting SP CLI on existing cards is much better.

 

Ok, with all that understood, if utilization is the primary concern here, SCT cards could help.  Some can be obtained without any HP at all and many offer SP CLI at regular intervals.  Lot's of people have gotten over $30k on a Barney's card, and it's not hard to get to $10k+ on a lot of other cards.  Don't know if the procedure has changed recently, but it should be quite simple.

 

Obviously, don't actually buy anything with the store cards and have a strategy in place to pay down existing debt.  If you're not going to come up with a plan and follow it, then don't do anything as you'll only make things worse by creating temptation.  As they say, once you notice you're in a hole, stop digging.

Message 8 of 33
elim
Senior Contributor

Re: Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...


@Revelate wrote:

Hey T,

 

If you have some non-trivial lines which I suspect you do given how long both of us have been on this forum, why not add her as an AU to one or two and see if they count (FICO 8, they will on older models and there's plenty of CU's pulling those) and therefore dumps her revolving utilization down as it's almost always faster to shed CC debt with a higher credit score... simply more options.


  This is a great idea. Then when your remodel is finally paid down, remove each other as AU and it will be like the accounts never happened. I'm sure you have some stuff ready to fall out of 0% promo so you are probably still going to need some heavy lines anyway. I would wait a month or two, ask for some CLI's, then app away. 

Message 9 of 33
tcbofade
Super Contributor

Re: Lowering utilization via increasing credit lines...

Thanks all, for the constructive feedback.

 

We MAY have to replace our AC this summer, and I'm hoping to get her scores high enough to qualify for a zero percent deal.

 

The SCT might work for some useless utility fluffing... I'm going to chew on that...

 

We ARE paying the debt down, it just takes a while....

02/01/24 Fico 8: EX 757, EQ 803, TU 783.
Fico 9: EX 760 12/16/23, EQ 790 02/04/24, TU No idea.

Zero percent financing is where the devil lives...
Message 10 of 33
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