My Profile - Fico 8 - High Utilization

[cj1132]

Not much new on the Fico 8 side.  Just slowly reducing balances and not incurring any new debt. 

I finally pulled my mortgage scores for the first time since February.  At that time, EQ was 705 and EX was 712.  TU wasn't available at that point.  Now, even with paying down balances considerably, EQ is still at 705, EX is 735 and TU is 750.  Both EX and EQ have my late Chase payment (5.3 years).  I think the reason EX increased is because a $30 paid medical collection mysteriously disappeared 4 1/2 years early.  EQ still has it listed.  It's amazing how much damage a $30 collection can do to a person's mortgage scores.

Since my middle mortgage score is now at 735, I plan to pursue a mortgage refinance next week.  I should be able to reduce my rate significantly.

[Thomas_Thumb]

Thanks for the update and good luck!

[NRB525]

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@cj1132 wrote:

It's been a dull last six weeks as far as my credit with no score changes.  I've been paying down balances but haven't made as much progress as I'd hoped.  Had to buy new tires for my car and a new lawnmower.  Put them both on a rewards card and paid off before statement cut so it wouldn't screw things up.  I'm learning.

CCT finally showed a score change on EX.  One of my Chase cards went from 50% to 49% and I gained nine points.  Absolutely no other changes on my report -- no total utilization change or age changes.  I wasn't expecting this at all so it was a nice surprise.

Will run a 3B report in six days when I'm allowed another one to see if EQ or TU changed.

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This aligns with my experience. In June 2015 three or so of my accounts finally dipped below 50% utilization, meaning that point nothing was individually over 50%, and the scores climbed a lot during June.

[cj1132]

Nothing much going on with my Fico 8 scores.  I just keep making my monthly payments and have been hanging on to extra money to use toward refinancing my mortgage.

On Thursday, I contacted a lender to do the refinance and gave him my mortgage scores which were 705, 735 and 750 as of October 5th.  I got all my questions answered and gave him permission to pull my credit.  He told me that it would be nice if I could get five more points to get to 740 which would give me a little better rate.  I told him it wasn't going to happen.  He called me the next day and told me that my middle score was at 745.  I have absolutely no idea why it would be ten points higher because nothing changed other than a couple payments which didn't do much as far as utilization.

I got alerts on all three bureaus that I have a new inquiry.  This is the first new credit inquiry I've had on my reports in 8 years and 5 months.  My Fico 8 scores did not change at all on EQ and EX.  I don't know if TU changed.  If CCT ever lets me do another 3B pull, I can find that out.

It will be interesting to see what happens to my scores in the next few months as there is going to be a lot of activity.  I may pay off my two Chase cards, am considering adding my BOA card to my mortgage, my current mortgage and heloc will be paid off, a new mortgage will be reporting and I may apply for a couple new cards.

[Thomas_Thumb]

I can't speak to your score increase. Really not enough data to hazzard a guess.

However, my experience is that Fico 08 allows one inquiry with no score impact - the model's lowest INQ category appears to be "less than 2" (no point deduction). Unfortunately, Fico 04's lowest INQ category is ZERO. So a single INQ, once listed on the CB reports, is likely to impact your Fico 04 score.

Congrats on the 745! middle mortgage score pull. Run with it.

[NRB525]

Can you re-list your cards with their overall balances and utilization percentages? A lot has been going on, and re-baselining where things are would be helpful.

Thanks for the updates.

[cj1132]

Haven't updated for awhile and thought I'd do so today as there will start to be major changes on my reports as my mortgage and heloc should be paid off today.

My current scores are:

TU  752

EX  760

EQ 742

I accidentally let a $14 balance report on my Citi card which caused my cards reporting to go from 5/9 to 6/9 and I had no score change.  It has since reported back to 0 again.

I had a 5 point increase on EX.

I had a six point drop on EQ on the 23rd.  I scoured my reports and nothing had changed that would cause the drop.  The only thing I could think of was my mortgage inquiry was on 10/23 and the score drop was on 11/23.  Is it possible that the drop could be due to the inquiry exactly a month later?  This is the only inquiry I have.

I'm expecting a score drop when the mortgage and heloc show as paid as it will probably be two or three months before the new mortgage reports.

Now that the new mortgage has closed, I can confidently use some of my extra cash to pay off my two Chase cards.  I will also have enough cash left over to pay my USAA down from 75% util to 30 to 35%.  I did decide to add the Bank of America card to my mortgage so that will go from 75% util to 0.  When all is said and done, I will have 2/9 cards reporting balances.  

I do plan to spread the changes out a little so I can see the effect of each change.  Will update as I go along if anything does change.

[Thomas_Thumb]

Congratulations on your new mortgage close.

Given all that's going on, it may be quite difficult for you to isolate impact of # cards reporting a balance until a few months down the road.

As an FYI - I took a look at the # cards factor on my EQ Fico 8 bankcard score (# cards essentially isolated from other factors)

1) Fico 8 BC = 886 (3 of 6 cards reporting) => Fico 8 BC = 882 (4 of 6 cards reporting)

2) Fico 8 BC = 882 (4 of 6 cards reporting) => Fico 8 BC = 882 (5 of 6 cards reporting)

3) Fico 8 BC = 882 (5 of 6 cards reporting) => Fico 8 BC = 886 (2  of 6 cards reporting)

So a 4 point drop going from LE 50% cards reporting to GT 50% then 4 point gain with LT 50% cards reporting.

[NRB525]

Thanks for the updates.

Could you list out the credit lines and open balance amounts on the cards? My experience is that there's a difference between a $500 card reporting a 20% balance and a $10k card reporting a 20% balance, likely due to the volume of dollars necessary. The utilization percentages are useful, but only half the story about the card utilization, really.