Equifax Mortgage Score Drop -- but why?

[Fraction]

Hey all,

I am working towards getting a mortgage, so mortgage scores are something I check closely on my subscription.

All of the scores have risen incrementally each report since I joined myFico in February of 2017 and started rebuilding in earnest. However, on this report, my Equifax Mortage Score actually dropped 14 points and I cannot figure out why. I figure I would give you guys a shot at it since you have a ton of knowledge. I will line it out with changes to the accounts from my last pull 2/24/18 versus today. My only guess is not being 100% on AZEO, but who knows.

Credit Cards:

Discover-

2/24 - $972/$12,000 || 4/24 - $0/12,000

Chase-

2/24 - $0/$3,000 || 4/24 - $0/3,000

Capital One-

2/24 - $30/$4,250 || 4/24 - $187/$4,250

AMEX- 

2/24 - $0/9000 || 4/24 - $29/9000

Installment Loans:

FedLoan Servicing-

2/24 - $12,009/$39,454 || 4/24 - $4,288/$39,454

Inquiries:

2/24 - 1 (2/24/17) || 4/24 - 0

All other information (including negative accounts) is the same as it was between the pulls. In fact, Equifax scores as a whole are down with the exception of FICO8, FICOAuto9 and FICOBank9. Again, I am stumped. I actually expected an increase seeing that my Student Loans went from 30.44% to 10.87% utilization. Any ideas?

[NRB525]

Since the only change is having another account with a balance, that seems most likely.

At the time of your next 3B report, ensure you get back to 1 card with a small balance, no other changes, and report back what this mortgage score does. If back to what it was [ actually would expect better ] then the datapoint would be quite useful.

[Anonymous]

You went from 2 cards reporting to 2 cards reporting while lowering your aggregate and individual UTI, I doubt AZEO is the culprit. Obviously you might gain a few if you enter AZEO next cycle but that doesn't really answer the current question.

[DollyLama]

Between Feb, Mar and Apr Reports, did an installment loan increase in balance, or pay off? Did any age off the reports loans or older credit card? Compare your Oldest age of accounts and Average Age of Accounts. The derogs you spoke of, have they not reported monthly and just started to update one or the past 2 months compared to Feb?

[Fraction]

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@DollyLama wrote:

Between Feb, Mar and Apr Reports, did an installment loan increase in balance, or pay off? Did any age off the reports loans or older credit card? Compare your Oldest age of accounts and Average Age of Accounts. The derogs you spoke of, have they not reported monthly and just started to update one or the past 2 months compared to Feb?

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Hey all, 

Thanks for the responses. 

Dolly,

Here are the responses to your followup questions:

1. My Student Loans are my only installment loan and as noted above I paid them down ~$8000, but I did not pay them off.

2. I think you may have found the reason. I had a First Premier Card that aged off in the gap which brought my oldest account from 10 1/2 years to 8 1/2 years, but the average age is still 6 1/2 years. Could this be the reason? A decrease in age of accounts by 2 years?

3. My derogs are just lates (though quite egregious lates) so the only updates to those are that the much older ones are falling off and the newer ones (2015) are getting older.