Lender Score Simulator for Rapid Rescore..shocked!

[Anonymous]

I spoke with the mortage lender today who pulled our credit report and she said we should do the simulator before you pay your credit cards and see if I need to do the rapid rescore or not and everything she did she said won't make a difference to your points, zero points except for one card US Bank she said if I get that down to 4000 I would get 13 points but all the other scenarios like paying off the smaller cards and even  paying off the 17,000 one wouldn't do a thing for points??? I'm having a hard time believing it! And Now I don't know what the heck to do to get the score up. We have 10,000 to put down, but also I hear it's not good having maxed cards so I can't believe putting some on the BOA wouldn't make a difference??. I've also used the simulator on here and it says putting 10,000 one time payment on revolving debt will bring the score up to 740-780 which is currently at 720??

Here are the credit card balances and CL's.

US Bank - 10,700, CL: 13,000

Cap 1 - 7900, CL: 10,000

BOA - 16, 650, CL: 17,000

Amex - 950, CL: 3300

Discover - 850, CL: 5000

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Donna

[AZHeather]

Has been my understanding and experience that you should get your cc utilization to around 9% for a maximum score boost.  In your case, you would only want around $4,347 in utilization on your cards with no one card exceeding 9% on it's own.  That would increase your score, but hard to say how much without knowing your overall credit picture.

With that being said, obviously coming up with $32k+ to pay off your cards is a lot.  If you could get them all to as close as possible to 50% utilization, I would think that would help, but again, hard to say how much without knowing your overall credit picture.

BTW - I have not found the simulator to be very helpful or accurate so far.  My experience is that I see larger jumps in my score than the similulator shows, but YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply. I'm just not getting how paying down the US Bank card to 4000 gets me 13 points but if I were to pay any of the other cards it does nothing? She said even paying the BOA one off in full wont give points and thats the highest balance and credit limit but the lower credit limit and balance will!!!

[AZHeather]

Not sure why you are being told that either.  I am not seeing why that particular card would give you more points than any other, but maybe I am missing something that she is seeing.  Could it be that card is only reporting on one report or that card is the only one showing on all three?  Must be something weird.  Did you ask her why that particular card?

[Anonymous]

She had no answers it was dead air on the phone when I was saying I'm shocked I can't believe it. We pulled our credit reports just recently and everything is showing as it should and she went through every card we owned plugging them in saying nope Amex wont do anything, BOA that wont get you any points until she got to US Bank and said if we get that to 4000 that will get you 13 points. I never knew they favored cc's now! lol

[Crashem]

If I understand correctly, you have a max of of 10k to put down.  I would say you should make sure all cards are below 80% (I think you have one card over 80% and one very close) and rember they round utilization percentages.  Also pay down to zero those two small cards.  Then do a reassessment.  I think at that point, it is only worth getting a card below 30%.  You need like 20k+ to get your total util to below 30%. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Crashem. That's interesting about they round utilization percentages because we just paid down the Capital One to 79% and it never changed the score, so what percentage should I be aiming for under 75%? Just crazy how this lender's simulator didn't give me any points but only on US Bank.

[AndySoCal]

First,  the FICO score simulator that is used by lenders is the best in the industry. This simulator has a very very high degree of accuracy.  A  possible reason why it suggests only one card is the cost of the rapid resolve.    By my calculations your credit utilization  would go from 77% to 62% after the rapid resolve is completed. I would say this is where you  will get the 13 points from.

[marty56]

If I had 10k, I would PIF the 3 cards with the lowest balances and then split the difference between the remaining 2.

[Crashem]

Btw Donna. Where is your fico showing now?