Construction Loan, Need 17 Points - Any Advice?

[Bentwater]

I have been lurking on this forum for some time now. It is an invaluable resource and I have been able to find most of my answers though the threads of other.  Now it is time for me to join in the fun and contribute!

We are trying to start construction on a new house and have been delaying awaiting my middle score to get above 720. It is like watching a glacier melt – I think I might be dead before it gets there.  Thanks to each of you, I understand a good bit of the basics such as optimally settling revolving credit.  The below table captures my history regarding revolving credit.  As you can see I am stuck at 703 and need 17 more points!!!  (note that I am focusing on Transunion as Experian is high enough and Equifax has a long ways to go)

Credit Analyis Transunion

Date           Revolving Credit Balance FICO 04 Score 8

6/11/2015         956                                693      736

8/11/2015     15287                                675      716

10/14/2015   14799                                686  

10/28/2015   17574                                684  

11/5/2015     24219                                671      712

11/10/2015   24219                                671  

12/17/2015   31031                                661  

1/19/2016     27445                                661      705

1/28/2016     25823                                661      710

2/4/2016       13204                                688      730

2/20/2016     11858                                688      732

3/4/2016           121                                703      749

Below are a few parameters based on my current Transunion credit report. What advice does anybody have on what action to take next?

• AAoA is 7 years 9 months - What benefit will I get when this reaches 8 years in June?
• I have two installment accounts less than one year old. Will these independently aging to one year help of will it just help once AAoA exceeds 8 years?
• I have two inquires total both that reach 12 months in May. How much will this help?
• My mortgage balance is at 90% LTV. Will paying this down to <89% help any?
• My total installment LTV is at 87%. It is not feasible to pay the total value down to <79%, but I can pay a few of the accounts down further. Would this help anything? I have two accounts that I could independently get below 80% LTV pretty easily.

For reference, the negatives on my report are listed below. No such luck with Goodwill letters on these.  Each of these aging has not seemed to help very much at this point and they aren'y close enough to 7 years to ask for an early exclusion.

• Credit card #1: 30 day July 2012 & Sep 2010
• Credit card #2: 30 day Jul 2012
• Installment account: 30 day Oct 2010
• Installment account: Charge off, zero balance. DOFD November 2010, Last activity Feb 2014

I am at a loss for the next best step to take. Any advice will be VERY much appreciated.  I desperately need to pull credit within the next 75 days and be at 720, but it just does not look good!!!

[Imperfectfuture]

You should post over here.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/bd-p/ficoscoring

You are in a dirty bucket until the baddies fall off. Until then, it just takes time to reach a certain score. The folks over there can answer score questions better.

[Imperfectfuture]

Oh, try to find another lender. Even FHA covers construction loans (up to a locale max). Not all lenders require 720.

[Bentwater]

I did find one ledner who only requires a 700, but their program is 1.25% higher interest rate.  Unfortunately, on the larger loan values all of the banks are pushing for the higher scores.

[Bentwater]

If it isn't one challenge, it is another!  

Put in the formal mortgage application.  My middle score pulled at 712 (myfico report said 709).  The lender granted a variance on the score.  Appraisal looked good, LTV is good, reserves are fine, and the first pass on DTI was good.

 Then they came back and said they cannot count my restricted stock as income even though I has received it since 2009 and showed up as taxable income since 2010.  This has been 20% of my income for the last three years and the bank will not count it.  IRS, Social Security, and Medicare sure do count it!  They can average it or take the lower of the three - any of these will work, but excluding it kills the deal!  

Now I have an inquiry with no result.  The myfico alert did not show a score decrease from it so let's hope that is the case.  I am back looking at options.  Grrrr