Authorized User Account

[Anonymous]

I am an authorized user on my wifes Chase credit card which has a $3500 limit and we currently owe about $450.  Do you think if we pay it down to under 9% util, that MY credit score will raise at least 1 point using quick score?   I am currently at an Experian score of 619 and the 1 point will get me an FHA approval.  Any ideas from anyone?

[haulingthescoreup]

It might, but you haven't given us nearly enough info.

What is your total util, and what is your total CL? (including any AU accounts)

What other negatives do you have, and how recent are they?

How old is your oldest account, open or closed, on your reports, and what's your AAoA? (average age of accounts)

What is keeping your scores in the low 600's? That's not bad, but it's a sign that you have some negatives there.

[Anonymous]

My util total on all cc's is less than 10%.  No negatives in the past 2 years, and avg acct age is 5 yrs.  I just can't get the Exp score to bump 1 point.  I quick scored a couple of cc payments and my Equifax score bumped 14 points?  Frustrating...

[haulingthescoreup]

If you're looking at an Experian score, it's not a FICO score, unless your mortgage lender gave it to you. EX stopped allowing consumers to buy their EX FICO's in February.

Try these two things:

- Get your total util down to 4% or less. You can do that by following the second thing:

- Pay off all your cards except one online before their statements post, so that they report $0. Let that one card (it can be the AU card if you like) report a token figure, well under 10% of that card's CL. If you have an HSBC/ Orchard bank card or a US Bank card, do this before the last business day of the month --that's when they update.

In the meantime, what are the negative factors, in order, on your FICO EQ score report? The negatives are listed in order of how badly they're hurting your scores, with the first-listed reason the biggest factor. If you can do anything about any of those, it should help.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am an authorized user on my wifes Chase credit card which has a $3500 limit and we currently owe about $450.  Do you think if we pay it down to under 9% util, that MY credit score will raise at least 1 point using quick score?   I am currently at an Experian score of 619 and the 1 point will get me an FHA approval.  Any ideas from anyone?

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Your mortgage broker should be able to run a what if estimation.

Also, you need to remember that mortgage scoring is not the same score that you see on MyFICO.  Did you get the 619 FICO from your mortgage lender/broker, or are you relying on pulling from MyFICO?

It is very common for somebody to score lower or higher on a particular loan based upon the flavor of FICO the lender uses (mortgage, auto enhanced, bank enhanced), etc.

With that said, paying your utilization down to say $100 (from the $450) should potentially help.  And mortgages love lower DTI and debt in general, which means paying down your debt may actually improve your mortgage score moreso than the MyFICO score....or not.  That's the lovely joy of FICO, there isn't just one hard score model that everyone uses.

[haulingthescoreup]

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txjohn wrote:

Also, you need to remember that mortgage scoring is not the same score that you see on MyFICO.  Did you get the 619 FICO from your mortgage lender/broker, or are you relying on pulling from MyFICO?

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Actually, the scores on myFICO are the classic scores, aka mortgage scores.

However, there's a good chance that a lender is using a newer version of the TU score than is available here.

Also, FICO invented some specialized mortgage scores, but they're not being used much.

For the EQ score, I'd say it's the same one as here: Equifax Beacon 5.0.

[Anonymous]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Also, you need to remember that mortgage scoring is not the same score that you see on MyFICO.  Did you get the 619 FICO from your mortgage lender/broker, or are you relying on pulling from MyFICO?

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Actually, the scores on myFICO are the classic scores, aka mortgage scores.

However, there's a good chance that a lender is using a newer version of the TU score than is available here.

Also, FICO invented some specialized mortgage scores, but they're not being used much.

For the EQ score, I'd say it's the same one as here: Equifax Beacon 5.0.

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Interesting.  Last year (late summer) my brother applied for a mortgage through Texas Lending.  The FICO scores they provided to him did not match ANY of the myFICO.com scores.  They were off by as much as 15 points (all lower than what myFICO.com showed).

[haulingthescoreup]

I think I remember you posting that? I wonder if they pulled the specialized version, or NextGen, or something.

Pretty much everyone who posts here say that their scores match, except for TU (the different version thing.) There's always exceptions to give us an opportunity to scrape egg off our faces though.