Understanding FICO® Scoring

[tin369]

I am trying to get my utilizations below 30% so that my score get higher. right now according to credit karma my utilization is 27% but my credit score according to the mortgage company is 698 TU.

so I want to pay down even more and get some points and come up to 720 or so, will I be able to do that in a month or so if I pay now?

[CreditStudent1981]

Hey there,

It would depend on when your cards generally report to the CRA's. I know Cards like Orchard Bank usually report balances the last day of the month. Others like Capital One and maybe Citi (dont quote me on Citi) report the balances that come from your statement date. 

If I remember correctly, a large portion of Banks report utilization percentage based on statement date. So if you havent passed your statement date for your cards and can pay the balances down, you should see the reflected amount in this round of score/balance updates. If not, then in about a month. 

[tin369]

If i sign up for for the FICO score watch, will i get teh real score? will I be able to cancel it easily or is a pain to do so.

[MovingForward_2012]

You can sign up for the free trial. If you don't cancel before it ends, you're obligated to pay for 3 months of services. I use it and I like it. There is a ton of info that comes with your membership.

[Ficoseeker]

Short answer is yes.on feb 6th my utilization stood at 48% and I paid my cc down to 7% shortly after that.I pulled my report yesterday and all my balances have been updated.I also managed to get an old collection from 09 deleted and the overall effect was my score moving from 685 to 783.in the computer age everything is possible.cheers

[tin369]

My credit score EQ 693 and my wife's 692 according to FICo score watch,

I have these balances

Chase -300

Cap one - 300

Chase - 3000

Amex - 400

She has

Chase - 300

Citi - 3900 ( I already made a payment of 2100 a few days ago)

Cap one - 0

I don't want to pay too much but enough to raise the score as I would need the money for teh down payment. We want to be able to be atleat 740+ but if we can manage to get upto 760 that would be great s it would help us savemoney on PMI.

Kindly suggest a strategy.

[llecs]

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tin369 wrote:

My credit score EQ 693 and my wife's 692 according to FICo score watch,

I have these balances

Chase -300

Cap one - 300

Chase - 3000

Amex - 400

She has

Chase - 300

Citi - 3900 ( I already made a payment of 2100 a few days ago)

Cap one - 0

I don't want to pay too much but enough to raise the score as I would need the money for teh down payment. We want to be able to be atleat 740+ but if we can manage to get upto 760 that would be great s it would help us savemoney on PMI.

Kindly suggest a strategy.

---

There's not enough information to determine utilization, but for max points pay all CCs to $0 except for one and get the one to report a balance of under 9% of the CL. FICO does like to see mostly $0 balances so pay off most of those CCs at the least. That'll also lower DTI if that were ever an issue with the lender. For the remaining CC, definitely get that below 30%. If you posted each CL, then it may be easier to get a rough idea on any score change.

[tin369]

Here are the CL info

Chase -300 (1000 CL)

Cap one - 300 (750)

Chase - 3000 (8500)

Amex - 400 (6000)

She has

Chase - 300 (1000)

Citi - 3900 ( I already made a payment of 2100 a few days ago) (4300)

Cap one - 0 (500)

I do want both of our scores to go up above 740 in the next one or two months. However, saving money for down payment and don't want to pay towards card if  the scores won't jump up significantly.

[llecs]

You're at 25% now. I bet you can add 30-40 points by paying down $2600 of your $4000 in balances and leaving the balance on the one CC on the higher limit Chase.

Your DW is at 72% before the paydown. After the $2100 reports then that'll drop to 36%. That alone might net 20-30 points. Pay it down even further to under 9% of the CL ($380 or so on the higher limit CC) with $0 balances on the other two, then I bet you'll see up to 40-50 additional.

The above are guesstimates based on what you posted. If either of you have anything else that can factor into util like LOCs, HELOCs, CO'd CCs, etc., then my answer would be different. The above also is assuming that util is listed as a top negative FICO reason. If oyu have baddies reporting, PRs, or other lates, then my answer would be lower.

[tin369]

So you are sayng that for me in order to increase svcore i will have to be under 9%, so the under 30% util does not apply anymore.

and the same goes for my wife as well? Correct

So unless it's under 9% it won't go above 740 score?