lilacteapot wrote:
I've been getting our score every year since 2001 and with very hard work, it has gone up every single year. Last year's score was 781. I just did this year's and it dropped to 748!!!! Nothing has changed except we owe $8,000 LESS money than last year and one less account with a balance. What's going on here!!! No new accounts opened. No inquiries. No judgements etc. Everything on the report seems accurate so why the drop? Does anyone know?
What are the credit limits and balances of each CC reporting a balance? My TU went from 792 to 761 with an increase from 6% overall util to 18%.
No Mortgage. Once our children were grown we decided we didn't want the hassels of owning a home any longer, so we do apartments and listen while maintenance cuts the grass.
lilacteapot wrote:
No Mortgage. Once our children were grown we decided we didn't want the hassels of owning a home any longer, so we do apartments and listen while maintenance cuts the grass.
This is my best guess as to why your score dropped.
1.) I believe you might have very well moved up a scorecard.
2.) Although your util is fairly low at 12% it's still too high in your new scorecard
3.) You have more revolving accounts with balances than others in your new scorecard
4.) I have to believe the majority of others in your new scorecard have a least one mortgage TL and this helps optimize a credit mix.
In essence I think you're losing points for these reasons. When it comes to scorecards, FICO is ensuring apples are compared with apples. I think you were really doing well in your previous scorecard and now you have to tread water for awhile.
I think the typical credit profile of someone in your new scorecard would read like this (yes this is a guess but it's an educated guess as I continue to research this subject; it's almost an obsession for me) :
credit history of more than 30 years and an average-age of accounts of at least 8-10 years
1-2 mortgage TLs with at least one paid
3-5 installments and maybe all but one paid
8-10 CC accounts with 2-4 open and very low balances(I'm guessing way lower than 9% util) and maybe a couple PIF
0 inqs
0 baddies of course
0 late payments
This thread really has me thinking. I might go ahead and PIF 3 of my 5 CC balances that are reporting 1-9% util and see what happens. When I did this before nothing good or bad happened. I want to see if I'm in a high enough scorecard where this might boost my scores some.
Can you believe this, I might actually be agreeing with smallfry! Has this ever happened??
Has this ever happened??
It's a guess, but if I'm not right I think I'm darn close.
fused this is what I hear helps most with very high scorers. People like me and with scores slightly lower might benefit from a little utilization. Once my new accounts stop hurting I can find out more. I am basically treading water with little score change for the past few months. Time to stop applying.