mortgage hit the experian credit report... Questions please

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Me and my husband got a mortgage on 12/19/2007  It his his experian credit report today but not any of the others yet... .  It dropped his score like 70 points and I think mine more like 40 points we got the mortgage back in december and the only payment that it shows on there is the payment of april...  It does say we got the loan in december but it says unknown for the pyament from february and march...  .  How long till our score goes up again I worked really hard to get it to 720+ and now his is like 653...  Will it go up with big jumps or small jumps...   Is this kind of a drop normal?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Scores are tricky, but yes, your score should/will drop every time you open a new account. Because you've taken on a new credit account, you are more at risk. Your score should improve every six months of seasoning as long as you make your payments on time. Also, since you did just obtain a new mortgage, and assuming it's for a new house, did you use credit to furmish it? Another imprtant part of your score has to do with how much credit you have and how much you use- i.e., you have a $10K credit card, but only keep about a $2K balance on it. Those who max the card out and make their payments on time will not have as high a score as though who use it minimally. Statstically, those who max out credit cards and only make minimum monthly payments have a higher default rate than those who don't. Lastly, all the bureaus have several different ways of generating a credit score, called models. These models vary how they analyze one's credit history to come up with a rank/score, so you do have the possibility of seeing your TransUnion score with one bank at 700, while another may show it at 720. Hang in there, it will all come together. I would be more concerned about getting your mortgage servicer to report all your payments correctly to each of the bureaus than a number right now. The pendulum is almost done swinging to the crazy side of tight-wad, and you should see an improvement in your score in July/August once you've made your sixth payment and your servicer reports the info to the bureaus.

[Anonymous]

We bought the house in december but for the most part we have not used credit to furnish it... We got a Rc Willey card for a new bed in March but that was like 1100 dollars which I just paid off last night.  We also bought 2 new monitors for our computers but I paid those off right after I bought them also...  We used most of our old furniture to furnish our new house...    How long do you guys think it will take for my scores to go up again my husbands dropped to like 657 and he has never been that low not even when most of our cards were maxed out a year or so ago...  The loan should now be almost 6 months old but it just hit our reports today any geusses how long it will take to see an improvement...?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Just sound like a timing thing, more than anything- maybe the stuff reporting is from before you paid it off. Most reports I see do drop around 20 points for a mortgage, and it may have just been a high balance month for you when you pulled that last report. Some of these cards are pokey in reporting- I've seen local banks around here only report every quarter, so I've had to have clients shell out some cash in order to get a quick rescore on their report to get better pricing/qualify for a loan. There should be a couple of different columns on your credit report that say a few things- when the account was opened, the month that they are reporting the last account activity (last transaction made), and the last month that they reported anything to a credit bureau. Six months/ sixth payment made on time from the last report date will be the magic number for you, and if you're normally at a 10-30% balance on your available credit cards, I think the first 6 month mark will do the trick.