My wife and I are preparing to start the mortgage process at the end of this month. We won't be able to close until about Sept. 1, so the lender said we should put off the pre-approval so that the letter would be good for enough time to shop and have time to close before it expired after 90 days.
Anyway, we're just trying to get our ducks in a row, and I have a few questions.
Background: My credit score is currently at 665 due to high util on credit cards. Wife's WAS over 700 a month ago.
1. My wife has a rewards card, and I am an AU. It only has a CL of 1,000, and we put all of our expenses on it and pay if off multiple times a month. We were traveling and I paid it off AFTER the statement date, so the reported balance went from 0 to over 900. It is back to 0 now, but it will show up on our CRs as extremely high util until the next statement date. My wife has a few other cards with higher CLs and 0 balances, so her overall util is still below 30%. She has a long and good credit history, so I imagine the hit to her score wasn't too fantastic.
2. I have high util on a few cards, but they are also pretty low credit limit. I have overall util of about 50%. Paying them down would take my score into the 690s or 700s (I know because I paid one of them down to 0 before applying for a car loan and it zoomed up.)
Question for 1,2: Does util matter? Or is all that matters the credit score. The max score we need it 660, and we're both over that even with the high util. Should this be a priority? Or is it only a priority if we need the score increase?
3. We currently live in student housing, but pursuant to a normal lease. Its a weird rent payment situation, because sometimes it has been paid out of financial aid, and at other times I just pay it every month. The school has a revolving credit agreement with a 45 day grace period, so my rent would be charged as due on the first, payable according to the lease on the 7th, then actually late 45 days later. I paid all over the place. Sometimes we needed to float through a December or something, so I would not pay Dec. and then my financial aid would hit my account and pay for Dec. and Jan. This was technically late according to the rental agreement but since it was billed through my student account, it was okay. I even called the housing office to make sure.
For this, I'm concerned that its going to be an issue if they ask for a years rental history. There is nothing on my report that says that I ever paid late (like I was never charged a late fee and there is nothing to indicate that I was ever late on my account.) However, there are several payments to my student account that are paid in the middle of the month.
So...is this explainable? Will lenders even ask if our scores are higher than 640? Our credit histories are solid otherwise. No lates for the past 3 years. Good credit mix, and multiple old accounts all in good standing.
Thanks!
