Long time listener, etc., etc.
Long story short, a CO due to fall off in January of 2017 has been removed from my EX and TU reports, resulting in respective scores of 716 and 720 (the latter shot up 53 points). EQ being EQ, it probably won't go away until December on that report. So, mostly good news on that front.
I'm looking to buy a house in the near future ($150K range), and my middle mortgage score was 719 back in July, so that's bound to have come up, too.
However, I'd like to give my scores a little more padding, and could use some advice on the best way to go that extra mile.
Current UTIL -- 3%
3 credit cards, $14K limit total
Can loan -- $7K remaining
IL tax lien -- $675, paid 2013 (reporting on EQ and TU, but not EX for some reason)
zero derogs otherwise
3 installment loans, 2 closed (both paid in full)
4 revolving credit lines, 1 closed (the aforementioned CO)
- Credit.com and Creditkarma both list "low available credit" as a negative, so that would imply CLI requests or applying for better cards, but that's apparently a no-no within 6 months of applying for a mortgage. I just got a surprise $3K CLI on my QS card, but my BoA card's limit hasn't gone up in 2+ years, and *that* was from a manual request that resulted in a HP. I have a Barclay Rewards card that's also been stagnant for a while. Are their CLI requests a soft pull?
- Those two sites also say "Too few accounts paid as agreed," which is confusing since I have a perfect payment history on all three open credit cards.
- Having too high a balance remaining on my existing installment loan is also listed as a negative. I've read here that paying it down to 9% of the original amount gives you a boost. I have the money, but would rather put that $5K towards the down payment. I'm only paying 2% interest on it, so it's tolerable as-is.
- The lien came out of nowhere, I honestly can't find any notices from the IL Dept. of Revenue about it (IL has a bad record of that recently; they tried to save money by not mailing out license plate renewal sticker notices this year. It ended badly.), so that dinky amount sat on my report for 2 years, and was paid as soon as I found it. Lesson learned - check your reports often. It's confirmed as paid and released, but it's now the only derogatory on my credit report, so I'd like to make it go away. However, IL is one of those states without a process in place for removing paid liens. Would it be possible to prove a failure to contact me? How would I check to see where they sent any notices?
The timing seems to be the problem. I *could* get approved for credit cards with much higher limits, but it would be a bad idea before applying for a mortgage. Ditto for CLI requests or a small credit builder loan to get more installment types on file. Or should I just go with what I have? My credit was pretty ugly 4 years ago, so I have an urge to polish it up as much as I can before taking the plunge.
Anyway, any advice would be appreciated.
