Reached 676 with no baddies what else can I do

[Anonymous]

I finally have no baddies on my TU report. My score is 676. I do have lates left on 4 accounts which I am continuing to goodwill. One is a 90 day late from August of 2014, so I'm really hoping I can get them to accept my GW letter. My utilization is under 8% and I have 6 open cc that are reporting use monthly. I try to keep all at 0 except for one. At the moment I do not have any installment loans open which I know can effect my score. I plan to open a 2 year secured loan and pay down to 9% to bump my score a bit. I'm guessing that would be around 15 points since that's what I lost when I paid off my truck early. I also know that with time my lates will age and give a bump. But other than that, is there anything else I can do to increase my score? Does increasing my credit lines bump my score or just help utilization? I'd like to be in the 740 category if possible by next February/March when I apply for a mortgage. Thanks for any advice. I feel lost without having anything to do anymore but garden lol.

[RobertEG]

You do still have baddies in the form of monthly delinquencies.

I would contnue your GW campaign.  Payment history is the most highly-weighted category.

With 6 open credti cards, presuming a couple are major bank cards, you have adequate revolving credit.

Increasing your credit wont help directly other than increase the denominator in your % util calculation.  You can achieve the same % util without any credit limit increases by simply keeping the numerator low, ideally having all accounts but one report a $0 balance, and one reporting less than 10%.

Get your installment loan at least a year prior to when you plan to apply for a mortgage, thus giving you a year of history on the account, with the hard inquiry having dropped from scoring at the one year mark.