My Progress so Far

[rina_b]

My husband and I are trying to buy our first home. My husband's scores are good. I thought I had excellent credit, but we learned when the lender pulled our credit reports that I'm not so great.

on 2/20/13 my scores were:

Transunion: 726

Equifax: 676

Experian: 639

I told the mortgage broker that I thought we could reduce the balance on the one credit line I had maxed out--he recommended that we clean up what we can and call him again in 6 weeks...

Well,

So far we've paid down the credit line to 60% utilization. I just checked out Equifax FICO and it's now 694. That's 18 points up! Getting there!

I also got a negative error off our Experian report. When we did that, our Experian PLUS score jumped to 684. After paying down the credit line to 60%, the PLUS score jumped to 714. I know it's not a real score, but do I have reason to hope?

We're going to keep paying down the credit line--we could get it down to 29% utilization in another month. I'm nervous to call the broker and have him pull our credit again--

so my questions are 

1. How much can I hope that the improvement in our Experian PLUS score will be reflected in our FICO?

2. Would you wait another month and pay down some more debt in the hope of having a 720+ median score?

Thanks!!

[guiness56]

The more you pay down on the utilization the more your score will go up.

Do you have any negatives on your report?

Welcome to the forums.

[rina_b]

Thanks guiness56. 

I had one collection showing up on my Experian report but it was an error and they deleted it in 30 minutes. There is also a 60 day late on a credit card that I was an authorized user on (thanks, mom)--the late is from 2007 and the card was closed in 2008. You can still see it on the report. Would that impact my score as well?

[guiness56]

It could yes.  Usually single 30 day lates impact your score for around 2 years. 60 days may be a bit worse, both are minor derogatories.  But, the higher the scores the more impact they may have.

The card is still factoring in your AAoA.  How old is the card and how old is your oldest account?

[rina_b]

Oldest open account is from 2008. There are closed accounts on the report from 2003 (this is the one that had a single 60-late on it), 2006 and 2007. I've never actively thought about building credit, so no thought went into closing old, paid off lines of credit.

Is it worth it to try to ask to get that old card with the 60-day late off my report?

Thanks for your help!