Here's my situation... I have 35 days to get my score as high as possible to qualify for a better mortgage program than the one I'm currently pre-approved for.
1. I have paid down all CCs to $0, EXCEPT one, which I am going to let post with a $50 balance (out of $5000 CL) basically reducing my utilization from 33% to 1%----- waiting for all of this to hit the bureaus now is like watching paint dry!! 
tick, tick, tick
2. I have one CC that will hit the one year mark in exactly 13 days!!! Perfect credit history on this account for a year, very low (and now no) balance. - not sure if TL aging helps with points at all at specific marks before 2 yrs??
3. I have one Inquiry that will fall outside of the 1 year range this month (yay, every point counts!!)
4. I have four inquiries that will hit the six/seven month mark this month - again, not sure if inquiry dings are reduced with aging over the year?
5. I cannot start ANY new cycles of further disputes, GWs, etc.... and all old (yet still reporting) baddies (and there are a few) are all paid to $0 (and have been for years) - so what's there will stay there.
I'm at a TU693, and an EX683 ...... trying desperately to eek out those 17 points and hit 700
Realistically, do I have ANY SHOT AT ALL?
Hard to say even if we knew what was on the positive side of your report: how big was the revolving utilization you've paid down?
Also and here's the bugaboo, when we're talking mortgage refinancing even, the scores here probably aren't reference. I would still check my Beacon 5.0 from Equifax directly (Scorepower), or if you happen to have a DCU membership or a PSECU one for EX Risk Model 2, and that's likely the best estimates you can get for mortgage qualification right now if you're trying to hit a specific number.
TBH in my case, when I get to the point of thinking I might be ready for a mortage within a year, I'm just going to go and put a stupid mortgage app in fully expecting it to fail, just so I can get my tri-merge scores. It's a severely unfortunate state of affairs in my opinion but it's what we have.
My recommendation to you would be to wait for the time you've outlined, take a swing, and see what you get. If it doesn't work, try like hell to get the further negatives removed, and if that doesn't work, wait if you absolutely need the 700.
@Revelate wrote:Hard to say even if we knew what was on the positive side of your report: how big was the revolving utilization you've paid down?
Also and here's the bugaboo, when we're talking mortgage refinancing even, the scores here probably aren't reference. I would still check my Beacon 5.0 from Equifax directly (Scorepower), or if you happen to have a DCU membership or a PSECU one for EX Risk Model 2, and that's likely the best estimates you can get for mortgage qualification right now if you're trying to hit a specific number.
TBH in my case, when I get to the point of thinking I might be ready for a mortage within a year, I'm just going to go and put a stupid mortgage app in fully expecting it to fail, just so I can get my tri-merge scores. It's a severely unfortunate state of affairs in my opinion but it's what we have.
My recommendation to you would be to wait for the time you've outlined, take a swing, and see what you get. If it doesn't work, try like hell to get the further negatives removed, and if that doesn't work, wait if you absolutely need the 700.
So here's exactly where I am...
1. The scores I have are MORTGAGE scores. My mid-score is a 683. Just had my broker pull the report (and got lucky that it didn't ding ANY of my scores!!). So i KNOW what they're seeing... on all three. TU693, EX683, EQ640. So I am 17 points away.
2. I have four active CCs..... three of mine, one AU. The three of mine are at $0 and will be reporting shortly (post the morgage pull). The fourth (AU) is my sister's and I am paying hers down to 9% less... will leave $50-$100 on it if I need to. Total CL =$10,000; $5,000 paid at $0, and her CL is $5000, which as of today she has a $2100 balance on (around 33% utilization). Total utilization is just barely under 30% will be reporting down to 3-9% over the next 30 days.
I'm just curious if I'm out of my mind thinking I can get 17pts out of paying all but one CC to $0, with one left at $50-100 (way less than 9%).....
and whether the inquiries aging, the one TL aging to a year, and multiple other inquiries aging over 6 months all hitting this month + the reduction in utilization could help me scrape by?
If not, it's not the end of the world... would just make things MUCH easier!!!! If I can hit 700 mid-score (the 17 points), I can get into a 10% down program with NO RESERVES!!!!! Meaning all the $$ that I would've been using for reserves can be put down on the home, and left in savings So it would be a HUGE benefit!!
Hate to be a negative nancy, but I can't get my scores to move that much from 30% aggregate utillization; you *might* get it if you had balances reported on all your cards but that might be a stretch too. Then again my report is awkward for a number of reasons and yours might be different if it's not as ugly (higher scoring potential from whatever bucket you're in).
TBH I still wouldn't change my advice: get your profile as clean as possible as you're doing, wait for the anniversaries to pass, and take the swing. May not make it but I'm not Svengali trying to estimate this; regardless, props to you for actually having the mortgage scores already, and your plan is nearly exactly what I would've done though I would've tried to get the AU to zero and left a balance on one of my own cards... but under FICO 04/98 shouldn't matter in the slightest.
Just my experience from watching my fico monitoring fluctuations, I have seen 20-30 point swings just from changes in utilization. So there's no harm in hoping.
@Revelate wrote:Hate to be a negative nancy, but I can't get my scores to move that much from 30% aggregate utillization; you *might* get it if you had balances reported on all your cards but that might be a stretch too. Then again my report is awkward for a number of reasons and yours might be different if it's not as ugly (higher scoring potential from whatever bucket you're in).
TBH I still wouldn't change my advice: get your profile as clean as possible as you're doing, wait for the anniversaries to pass, and take the swing. May not make it but I'm not Svengali trying to estimate this; regardless, props to you for actually having the mortgage scores already, and your plan is nearly exactly what I would've done though I would've tried to get the AU to zero and left a balance on one of my own cards... but under FICO 04/98 shouldn't matter in the slightest.
Thanks for the input... and for the validation that I'm making the right choices Revelate!!
It's been a long road in the last 10 months... when I paid my jeep off in December of last year it hit my credit report hard! It was only one of two reporting TLs, so I took a HUGE hit in the way of a 45 pt loss..... that put me into the 500s to start with!!! So, it I can swing these 17 points, it will be nothing short of miraculous to me!
Either way, I REALLY appreciate all of the information, advice, and support given on here for the last year I've learned more about my credit, and what's important, than I ever expected to in my life
well, first of 3 cards that I paid down to $0 this month hit my CR today... a whole whopping 4 pts
After these three report then comes the "big one" ......dropping one of the 4 cards from the 30's% utilized down to 1%..... ohhhh please let me have a chance!! lol
Guess it's better being 4 up vs. 4 down 4 down... 13 more to go
@fishbjc wrote:I paid one card down by $50 and gained 13 points. You just never know. I've been keeping track of each payment and playing around a bit.
I bet you'll get there!!!! Keep us posted, will ya!
If I can pull this off, I officially wll have arrived at the 700 mark! fingers crossed.... and will definitely let you all know how it turns out!!