85% to 2% util

[bdhu2001]

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@rootpooty wrote:

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@bdhu2001 wrote:

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@rootpooty wrote:

checking back in to post results.  Scores were 647 622 630

now 767 760 758

in order of transunion equifax experian

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Great job!!! Thanks so much for getting back to us.  While you're waiting for your house to close, can you be more specific about what you did?  For example: Did you have 5 credit card with balances and you paid off 4 and left the 5th one with a 9% balance? Inquiring minds, & data driven people trying to figure out FICO 08, would like to know. 

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Ok looks like im sitting at 12% util and not 2 wow and I still got that much of a score bump?  42 and some change reported on my BOFA card and 22 on my freedom and for some reason since I already made one payment last month I paid the remaining balance on my amazon card which was 600 on the day the original payment was due and they still reported the balance.  Also 2300 of my kay account also reported but I got the statement in the mail which reflects zero balance so it should reflect zero sometime this week.

Also after my 600 scores posted I attempted to purchase a new vehicle and the dealer slapped a slew of inquiries on my reports prob at least 6 on each.  I was under the impression that they only count as one score wise but my LO for my home application loan told me that they count as one up to 3 anything past that counts as one each so who knows.

The TU score was from walmart the EQ was pulled from here and the EX was pulled from my LO

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Thanks for reporting back. Nice to know that you had small balance reporting across 4 cards and still got that bump.

On another note, I keep hearing from people that dealerships are doing multiple hard pulls (some times as much as 10 or 11) when they go in for a car loan.  That being the case, I think I'd get my loan from my bank or credit union before I go to the lot for a car.  

[money_talks]

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@bdhu2001 wrote:

I'm saying it's logical to expect that paying off your credit makes you a good credit risk.  It's also logical that you're a better credit risk when you don't owe a bunch of people. It not logical that you become a worse credit risk as soon as you pay everyone off (i.e the leave on card with a small balance). 

Without complicated algorithms, we would expect these things to be true. Perhaps I should say that to me it's logical, especially before all the electronic monitoring and payment of bills.

Previously, people relied upon snail mail to receive their statements and to pay their bills.  Sometimes the mail wasn't delivered or was set aside to open later. Thus, if you had many bills showing up in your mail on different days and due different days, it was more likely that something could be over looked.  Add to that mix that credit cards had the right to change your due date every cycle (CRPB and laws changed that). As a consumer, you felt they played with your dates in the hopes of charging you a late fee, but in a way that didn't mess up your credit. You asked your creditor for a specific due date, but some creditors wouldn't do it.

I think the FICO 08 & 09 models are changing, because the method consumers use to verify and pay bills are changing and consumer protection has made it easier for consumers to have a handle on their bills.  Thus, you can now have multiple cards and keep track of them, because the due dates aren't moving, you get alerts, you use mint, auto pay, and numerous other electronic methods to stay on top of your bills.  It's no longer true that people with more than 5 cards are likely to have bills get out of control.

However, it still doesn't change that if I only owe 3 people and an issue occurs, I'm more likely to still pay the 3 people. Because small amounts every where ($2 - $70) may be considered negligible so I may not even put them in my budget, but $200- 1000 per month bills I definitely add to my budget. Thereby, additional reasons that having only 1 -2 cards with a balance is better than having small balances on all cards. To me that's logical.

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+1. Your explanation is quite logical to me at least. On this same reasoning, I think you can further say that your score is dinged even more as your accounts reporting a balance increase. The more accounts you have, the greater the chances of something happening where one or more of your creditors don't get paid for whatever reason. But there can also be a limit where your score doesn't continue to get dinged, for example it could be at 20 or more CCs reporting a balance where you are scored the same by FICO. 

Just like util though, this is only a snapshot and can be misleading. For 2 years you could have multiple cards reporting a balance. Then one month before apping  you let all but one of your cards report a balance. Once your CR gets updated, your FICO goes up. When you app, the credtior that pulls your CR may not know that you have a tendency to let balances report on most of your cards. In essence, you are a riskier borrower than what your current FICO reflects.

[Anonymous]

rootpooty - thanks for a very informative thread. This has been great knowledge.