It can happen to you, too. Last week my wife and I picked up a very big check as we closed our mortgage, at a great rate. Once again, thanks for all the help I got here. I cleaned up a LOT of misinformation in about 5 months, and got my home! Now, onto the next steps. My questions are what to do with the final issues:
1) A released tax lien, due to come off my report in 2014. IRS says they will remove if asked under new policy. Now that I have my mortgage, and a credit score over 720, should I request the lien be removed? Or, should I not worry about it? Any downside to poking the IRS dragon with a stick? Re-bucket? Whatever?
2) I have a Chase (formerly WaMu) credit card from 2000 that has a paltry credit limit of $250. It used to be $3800 until the recession hit, and they just dropped the credit limit. I kept it because I used to get free fico scores every month. Now, I see no reason in keeping it open. My AAoA is bolstered by some student loans (paid off in 2007) that go back to 1985, (AAoA is 14 years). Should I be able to close this Chase card with no problem? Chase kinda sucks. And this is the only late I have on my account, because I bought a pair of shoes in 2009 and the card on file was this one, to my surprise, which I never use, so I wound up with a 30-day late. I have two other cards with total 33K limit. Any reason to keep this dog? Can I tell Chase to get lost?
3) As for the mortgage, how might this affect my score when it reports? I have three credit cards with a total 10% utilization, 4 student loans still reporting that are paid and never late (they'll report until 2017). A best buy charge card with a zero balance.Will having the big fat mortgage hurt my score? Will my "mix" improve? no change? I'm jsut looking for guesses here, so show off your fico skills!
