Applying for a mortgage in a few weeks,now I am not so sure

[wendlan]

 I have been working really hard to pay down my credit cards to get ready for a mortgage. I am at 15% usage over 6 cards. My fico 08 scores are EQ 646 TR 634 and EX 643..I pulled the new scores and for the mortgage scores I have EQ 640 but EX is 625..I have been working on paying things down and correcting errors for about 9 months now. My mortgage lender pulls Kroll Financial Data,when it was pulled months ago the numbers were much lower than my 08 scores. Am I going to be in the range? I need a middle 640 score,according to the mortgage scores here I won't be. I am not sure what else I can do. I can pay balances to 9% usage but I don't know if it will help. Frustrated at this point. I have an account at Experian website and in the late payment column it says I had one late payment 8 months ago which is not true but when I review each account it shows no late payments to dispute,everything is up to date.

[StartingOver10]

Paying down your utilization will help. How many cards are reporting a zero balance and how many ate reporting any balance at all? It makes a difference.

[wendlan]

I have one card showing zero and 5 cards between 9 and 25% usage. The 25% usage ones are small credit limits like 200-350. My big ones are Cap1 $3500 limit and 350 balance and Barclay $2000 limit and $318 balance. I will pay them down to 9%, I just don't want to lose points. I have lost points before for going too low with the tiny credit limits. I found the error at Experian finally that shows a Merrick credit card not paid in May 2014, this was a card in my CH 13 bankruptcy filed in July 2010 and discharged 5/2014. I talked to Experian credit tracker and was transferred to Experian Credit Reporting agency. They are deleting it,whoo hoo,I searched for that late for weeks. I just have to follow up and make sure it comes off. My late before that was 2.25 years ago,maybe I will get a bump for that after it is deleted. Bankruptcy is a factor I can't change right now but everything else is clean.

[Revelate]

---

@wendlan wrote:

I have one card showing zero and 5 cards between 9 and 25% usage. The 25% usage ones are small credit limits like 200-350. My big ones are Cap1 $3500 limit and 350 balance and Barclay $2000 limit and $318 balance. I will pay them down to 9%, I just don't want to lose points. I have lost points before for going too low with the tiny credit limits. I found the error at Experian finally that shows a Merrick credit card not paid in May 2014, this was a card in my CH 13 bankruptcy filed in July 2010 and discharged 5/2014. I talked to Experian credit tracker and was transferred to Experian Credit Reporting agency. They are deleting it,whoo hoo,I searched for that late for weeks. I just have to follow up and make sure it comes off. My late before that was 2.25 years ago,maybe I will get a bump for that after it is deleted. Bankruptcy is a factor I can't change right now but everything else is clean.

---

For the overwhelming majority of people on the FICO's used for a mortgage score, one card reporting a small balance and the rest reporting $0 is solid optimization advice.

What were you using to track losing points for paying off balances?

[wendlan]

I was tracking here at myfico 08, I paid a $300 credit card to zero and lost 6 points from my experian score. I know that isn't the mortgage score. this can be sp frustrating, especially hovering right around the acceptable 640 mortgage score!

[Lemmus]

---

@wendlan wrote:

I was tracking here at myfico 08, I paid a $300 credit card to zero and lost 6 points from my experian score. I know that isn't the mortgage score. this can be sp frustrating, especially hovering right around the acceptable 640 mortgage score!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...losing 6 points on one CR is a normal event over a month ...another CR will likely increase for the same event ...there are tons of anquished posts on myFico asking why and to my knowledge, not one credible explanation other than sh*t happens.

...as noted above the favored "ideal" is one CC at 3-9% and the rest at zero for optimal scoring but there are so many factors involved in the scoring that nothing holds true for everyone in every scenario.

...if you have a good LO they will have the ability to run scenarios that are much more specific to your info and their overlays than the crude scenarios you will find here or on other sites ...if not, find another LO ...hth

[StartingOver10]

As the others pointed out, you really need to pay all your accounts to zero except one. You are being dinged for having balances on almost all of your revolving accounts.