Rapid decline in scores, based on not much???

[Anonymous]

We are applying to refinance our mortgage, and have decided to move on from the first potential provider because it was taking forever.  They ran credit scores on my wife and in late October.  Across Equifax/Experian/Trans Union our scores were 786-771-780 (me) and 710-732-726 (my wife).

The new mortgage company ran reports late last week and came back with much lower scores:  726-695-751 (me) and 699-726-696 (my wife).  From the report I got from the mortgage company, the only late payment appears to be one 30 day item from July 2012.  Nothing more recent, and the other late payment was a 30 day back in 2007.

I know next to nothing about all this, but are these big drops from October given that the only possible new late payment is the one from July (wouldn't it most likely have shown up in the late October report ordered by the prior mortgage company?).  We haven't added any new credit accounts since October.  

What I do know is that because my wife's middle score is now below 700 (699) the all in cost of the financing will be $700 higher at closing (we'll get $700 less credit).  Not a huge deal, but annoying.   

[guiness56]

One late payment can affect your score but the recovery is pretty quick if that is the only one.  It will usually impact your score for 2 years.

It may be the model of FICO they are using.

What about CC utilization?  High, low?

[Anonymous]

Could scores widen out that much, based on the first late payment in five years?  

CC utilization is not up since October.

Still trying to understand why the scores declined so much from late October to now.

[JM-AM]

Does it say on both reports FICO scores?

Have you changed your habit on how you use your credit cards? Did the INQ's show from last credit pull?

So many scenarios hard to justify.

I have no idea why 1st lender didnt get it approved and closed unless the 30 day late became an issue.

[Alexia94582]

It's unclear what you mean by running credit scores on the both of you.

The fact that the late payment occurred recently may have a big impact on your scores. What was the time frame of the hard inquiries?

What is the over all health of your credit reports for the both of you? Have you considered to refi- on your own. While her credit report improves.

Alexia

[ztnjpv]

There are a lot of question marks left out there because of many obvious factors that you didn't clarify.

-new accounts (credit card, a car etc.)

-hard inquiries

-good closed accounts falling off with the passage of time. 

-Are these FICO scores that you are showing us?

The first and third could greatly affect your Average Age of Accounts (AAoA), which in turn will affect your score. Hard inquiries sting the hardest in the short run and weaken with time. 

These are major question marks based on the info you provided. There HAS TO BE a reason for the drop in score. It may not make sense to you or me that the score would drop for such reasons but the FICO score is simply a formula. It reacts to inputs of info so things don't happen for no reason.