You wanted to know all possible strategies for raising your score, which is the reason I asked about your installment loans. If you were to pay them down a bit you could get some benefit, though it might be mostly on the EX mortgage score rather than the TU and EQ. This is because the mortgage model for TU and EQ is FICO 04, which does not reward a person much (if at all) for keeping loans open but also making sure that you have paid them down a lot. The mortgage model for EX is FICO 98, which does reward you for doing that.(as does FICO 8).
If it had been financially very easy to pay down each loan to a little under 80% (or possible 70%) then we might have explored that. But my guess is that the smarter mortgage decision for you (given where your loans are) is to save all available money between now and closing for your down payment -- and to rely on other strategies for raising your score.
So bottom line for installment loans: keep making regular on time payments. But don't do anything else.
You ask:
"I get the collection holding it down, but do not get how a 30 put jump in one version =a loss of pets in another."
If I understood your initial post right, and your supplemental posts afterward, that collection has been on your reports (and listed as paid) for a long time. Therefore the collection cannot be the cause of a recent point gain in EX FICO 8 vs. a recent point loss in EX mortgage (FICO 98). The collection isn't EQUALLING (i.e. causing) the 30 point rise in one vs. the loss in the other.
I can't be sure what caused one score to go up and one to go down. As I understand it, FICO 98 (your EX mortgage score) is supposed to react in a similar way to FICO 8 with respect to loans being paid off. So my guess would have been that both models would have taken a dive. There may have been other things going on at the same time that could have caused it.
For example, if the collection was listed as paid around that time then FICO 8 would have loved that and would have given you a big boost, one that would have more than compensated for the FICO 8 penalty for the loan payoff. (THus you would have seen a net gain.)
Anyway, the key practical steps for you to take are clear. You cannot undo the step of the loan payoff, so forget about it. Steps for you:
(1) Wait 4-5 months for the collection to go away. You mention EE (by which you may mean Early Exclusion). I don't know anything about that but there are many threads here on the Forum that deal with it. Waiting seems simpler but the key idea is getting the collection to go away. You will get a big boost when this happens.
(2) Then pull all three mortgage scores at myFICO. You will know how eligible you are for loans, best rates, etc. once you do that.
Note: crucial question. In the entire thread you keep talking about your EX mortgage score. Are you also considering what your mortgage scores at EQ and TU might be? If not, why?
If you want some additional advice that is slightly more complicated, here's one more thing you could do to prep for your mortgage. The underwriter will use a piece of software called DU (Desktop Underwriter) to do the final approval your loan. DU will look largely at your FICO mortgage scores, but in the latest version of DU, it also looks to see whether, in the past, you have been what is called a Transactor on your credit cards. A Transactor is a person who does two things:
(a) He transacts. That means his credit reports show that he has actually placed transactions on his cards.
(b) He pays his CC statement in full. This means that he pays that "Amount Owed" that is on the statement sometime in the 21 days following the statement printing. And he pays that in full.
The DU software will be able to see whether you have actually (a) transacted and (b) paid in full for each of the last 24 months.
Thus, if some of your cards haven't been used for a while, it couldn't hurt to create for yourself a history of being a transactor on them. Just for a few months, while you are waiting for the collection to come off. Use the card, let it produce a statement with a positive balance on it, then pay it in full. When the collection falls off, you can go back to your current credit card strategy, which is All Zero Except One (AZEO). AZEO is good for maximizing your FICO mortgage score. Showing that your were a transactor in the past is something that will make DU happy. As long as you have created some history for yourself as a transactor, AZEO can be the strategy you use each month closer to the mortgage. Now is the time to create that history since you still have a good four months of a lousy score due to the collection.
This whole DU/Transactor thing is something you can ignore if you don't understand it. It's more of something you can do just to cover all your bases.
