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In general the two things you can do to improve your FICO score in the short term is to either try and remove negative items (collections, lates) from your report or lower your utilization ratio by paying off debt or increasing credit limits.
With removing negative items the fastest way is to have the company that reported the information to send corrected information to the bureaus but that can be difficult to do and sometimes may still take 30 - 45 days to reflect on your credit. Most of the time you will have to file a dispute through the bureaus in which they have to respond within 30 days. Another option sometimes available through the lender you are going through is something called a Rapid Recheck, it is not cheap to do but if you get letters from the creditors stating they removed a late or you lowered your balance those letters can be sent to the bureaus through that product available to the lender and get updated within 3-5 business days.
With improving your utilization ratio the best way is to pay off as much debt as possible but how you pay it off can matter. If you have multiple credit cards you want to call calculate the util ratio for each and lower the highest ones. Also to keep in mind if you have UTIL of say 90%, 60%, and 30% it is better to get them all to around 30% than pay off the 90% completely and leave the 60% and 30% on showing on the CR. I mentioned you can try to increase the CL to also change your UTIL but you want to do that with caution because typically it will add an inquiry unless they do it as an AR and also it takes long for them to update that on your CR and the fastest way to update it will usually be disputing with CBR. One note about disputing is you don't want to do it if you are in the middle of the mortgage process as it will sometimes cause problems and even lead to denials due to issues with automated mortgage underwriting process.
Since you mentioned that you were added as an authorized user that can help your score as it will change the UTIL but again through regular channels that may take 1-2 months to show on your CR.
@bokbokchcknhead wrote:In general the two things you can do to improve your FICO score in the short term is to either try and remove negative items (collections, lates) from your report or lower your utilization ratio by paying off debt or increasing credit limits.
With removing negative items the fastest way is to have the company that reported the information to send corrected information to the bureaus but that can be difficult to do and sometimes may still take 30 - 45 days to reflect on your credit. Most of the time you will have to file a dispute through the bureaus in which they have to respond within 30 days. Another option sometimes available through the lender you are going through is something called a Rapid Recheck, it is not cheap to do but if you get letters from the creditors stating they removed a late or you lowered your balance those letters can be sent to the bureaus through that product available to the lender and get updated within 3-5 business days.
With improving your utilization ratio the best way is to pay off as much debt as possible but how you pay it off can matter. If you have multiple credit cards you want to call calculate the util ratio for each and lower the highest ones. Also to keep in mind if you have UTIL of say 90%, 60%, and 30% it is better to get them all to around 30% than pay off the 90% completely and leave the 60% and 30% on showing on the CR. I mentioned you can try to increase the CL to also change your UTIL but you want to do that with caution because typically it will add an inquiry unless they do it as an AR and also it takes long for them to update that on your CR and the fastest way to update it will usually be disputing with CBR. One note about disputing is you don't want to do it if you are in the middle of the mortgage process as it will sometimes cause problems and even lead to denials due to issues with automated mortgage underwriting process.
Since you mentioned that you were added as an authorized user that can help your score as it will change the UTIL but again through regular channels that may take 1-2 months to show on your CR.
Hi! Welcome to MyFico Forums!
The information mentioned above is only partially accurate. Mortgage companies have the ability to do what is known as a "Rapid Rescore".
If you can present information to the Mortgage Banker, which proves that the information is reporting inaccurately on your credit report, then the mortgage lender or broker can request a Rapid Rescore on your behalf.
My mortgage broker helped me to fight against some inaccurate reporting, and in the end he obtained a letter from the data furnisher admitting their mistake and that the tradeline should be deleted. The inaccurate tradeline was deleted less than 24 hour later, helping me to qualify for the mortage at competitive rates.
If there are mistakes that you know are there and can prove it, then you can use Rapid Rescore, if you have a motivated mortgage guy to push that process for you.