Score Dropped-Really Confused

[Lifeof4]

I'm in the process of trying to get a home and my mortgage officer said "pay down the balances of your credit cards" (I only have 2), so thats what I did; however MyFico reported since I paid down my cards, my score has dropped lower than when I was carrying a higher balance. Nothing else has occurred with my credit no collections, repos nothing else is going on with my credit, as my credit history is pretty much clean, I did have collections, but they are paid and have been paid for years, nothing else has been reported, I haven't opened up anything, this is really mind boggling.....

[Anonymous]

If you paid both accounts to $0 then that may be the issue. One card should be reporting a small balance to optimize your FICO score. 

[Lifeof4]

No neither got paid to zero, they both were paid to reflect no more than 25-30% utilization, which the mortgage industry likes to see per my mortgage officer.

[Anonymous]

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@Lifeof4 wrote:

No neither got paid to zero, they both were paid to reflect no more than 25-30% utilization, which the mortgage industry likes to see per my mortgage officer.

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Pay one down to zero. Pay the other to less than 10%. You really need a third card. Things get a little wonky with balance management when you only have two cards.