Understanding FICO® Scoring

[Objectivist]

Last month I had a utilization of 117% ...Now it's at 1%. My score at the time was 657 for TU... How much of an increase should I expect? Any guesses? I'll post the results when I see them.

Hint: I have no baddies with one revolving line and AAoA is 1.5. My revolver is 3 years old. I've had 5 inquiries since then (being dumb).

Edit: Fixed numbers.

[my-own-fico]

200 points? I don't have a clue; it depends on lots of stuff. What takes your AAoA down? You had just that one credit card, you said?

You said something about high balance and utilization being a snapshot in time. Yes to with FICO, but CCCs may view it differently.

[Objectivist]

Ok. So are my historical balances listed on my credit report? If so, that's a bummer. How long do they stay on there? My student loans bring down my AAoA. I'm still in school and don't need to pay them off yet.

[llecs]

If you only have one CC then the impact would be much lower than if you had a good mix of credit with 3 or more CCs. Now you're over the limit and getting below 100% will return some points. Getting from below 100% down to 1% counts too. I'd guess 40. If you had 3 or more CCs, and got overall util down to that, then I'd guess 130+ on EQ and less on TU. The biggest indicator aside from mix is on your FICO reports. If util is listed in the top 1 or 2 slots in items that hurt your score the most, then you stand to see bigger gains.

[Objectivist]

Yeah, it's listed on top of everything (even history), so hopefully I will see big gains. A 700+ score would be pretty nifty.

[llecs]

I think hitting 700 is possible.

[eyeruh]

You could get close to 700. I was at a 90-95% credit utilization due to my wedding spread over 4 cards. I'm down to 8% and my fako TU/TR score shot up nearly 30 points to the low-mid 700s.

[Objectivist]

UPDATE: My score went from 657 to 736. From 117% to 1% in a month.

[Epcot]

That's fantastic, Congrats!

I have my utilization around 80% and will be bringing it down to 30-40% within the next month with the hopes of under 15% by early next year. Seeing your example has me excited for what increase I may see.

[Objectivist]

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Epcot wrote:

That's fantastic, Congrats!

I have my utilization around 80% and will be bringing it down to 30-40% within the next month with the hopes of under 15% by early next year. Seeing your example has me excited for what increase I may see.

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Thanks! You'll definitely see a huge boost. Also, I was at high utilization for almost the whole time I had the card which was 3 years, so it definitely just takes a present moment snapshot.