@Anonymous wrote:Afternoon fellow FICO Fanatics.
I am asking for opinions on how I can progress in my scores. I had a bunch of things that I had to set up all at once between May and June so I am planning on gardening from here for hopefully at least a few years.
I guess my wonderment is in the idea of if I can ever get close to an 800 score?
I want to purchase a bigger home about 2021 after I pay off this home and big better credit score is big, better for me.
My current FICO 8 scores: EQ 697, TU 704, Ex 707
The only derog on me is a charge off from 2013 which was paid off in 2016. Otherwise everything is paid on time always.
Oldest account is 7 years. I have had credit since 2003, but was ignorant of the ways credit worke dand closed out cards I didn't use. Average is now about 2 years due to new credit items
I refinanced my home to go from ARM to 15 year FRM $68,400. I am going to be paying large monthly payments and this is planned to be paid off in 4 years.
My CCs are as follows:
AMEX $1100/$30000 (we are fixing husbands truck as well so estimating an additional $3000 to be added to current balance here soon).
Cap 1 $0/$8500
Chase: $0/$4500
Huntington voice: $0/$1500
Store card VCF: $2700/$6000
Student loan is paid down to $ 2000
I have 6 new inquires due to refinancing home, Student loan to go back to school starting this past January, doing a lease on a car and opening 2 credit cards all between May and June.
I have 9 open accounts and 11 closed accounts.
My credit utilization just dropped from about 43% to 9% over the past month, but my score didn't increase, but it did drop my scores to where they are now related to closing the old mortgage, and decrease in average credit history.
I always pay everything on time, and make more than minimum based off of a plan I lay out each month to determine what is fastest /best course of action to pay everything down. (I think this is my OCD area lol)
I guess I am wondering if I can ever get to an 800 and if so, how do I get there? the highest I have ever hit is about 720s before getting everything that happened together here in May/June. I feel like I sometimes don't seem to get my scores to increase much at all even before the credit pulls/new accounts.
Thanks everyone!
Yes you can get to 800 on FICO 8.
But since your focus is on applying for a mortgage in 2021, you should probably focus on your mortgage scores:
EQ FICO 5, TU FICO 4, and EX FICO 2.
They behave differently than FICO 8.
E.g., when my overall installment loan utilization dropped from 89% to 8.9%, my TU & EX FICO 8 scores went up 37 and 31 points respectively, while TU FICO 4 went up just 13 points, and my EX FICO 2 didn't move at all.
My feeling with the mortgage scores is that
(a) they place a premium on age, so a good strategy going into a mortgage is to apply for no new credit
(b) they place a premium on as few accounts as possible carrying a balance, so a good strategy in the months leading up to a mortgage is to let no more than one credit card report a balance
@Anonymous wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
Yes you can get to 800 on FICO 8.
But since your focus is on applying for a mortgage in 2021, you should probably focus on your mortgage scores:
EQ FICO 5, TU FICO 4, and EX FICO 2.
They behave differently than FICO 8.
E.g., when my overall installment loan utilization dropped from 89% to 8.9%, my TU & EX FICO 8 scores went up 37 and 31 points respectively, while TU FICO 4 went up just 13 points, and my EX FICO 2 didn't move at all.
My feeling with the mortgage scores is that
(a) they place a premium on age, so a good strategy going into a mortgage is to apply for no new credit
(b) they place a premium on as few accounts as possible carrying a balance, so a good strategy in the months leading up to a mortgage is to let no more than one credit card report a balance
My curret Mortgage scores (updated on myfico this moth) is 712 for FIco 2, 733 for FICO 4, and 712 for FICO 5.
Since everything is calculated so differently, not sure where to go with that, but would figure that if Iimprove scores in general that these would also improve?
I figure gardening in general would improve things overall...ah the waiting. lol. Truthfully I have no other needs atm for anything, other than finishing up school but that is over in Spring 2018 if all goes to plan. I am not sure if each semester is going to hit my credit or not as the loans are added, never had any loans when I got my associates degree, so never dealt with it before.
My gut feeling is that gardening is indeed the way to go, because the mortgage scores seem to be even more sensitive than many other score models to "new" credit applications, and more rewarding to "old" credit.
