The installment loan reported the updated balance today on EX, bringing overall installment utilization down to 8.9% from 89%. As anticipated, all 31 points which had dropped out of FICO 8 were restored. I'm going to pull my EX report later today, to see what difference the installment utilization percentage difference made to my scores other than FICO 8. This will give me a definitive answer as to whether, and if so to what degree, EX FICO 2 factors in installment utilization percentage.
As of yesterday my EX FICO 2 sat at 723 (31 points lower than FICO 8) and had only the following negative factors, which are the "usual suspects" for my profile:
You have a short credit history.
You've recently been looking for credit.
You have too many credit accounts with balances.
You've recently opened too many new credit accounts.
It did not cite as a negative factor "the remaining balance on your mortgage or non-mortgage installment loans is too high",
which did appear on my FICO 8 analysis. This suggests that FICO 2 does not care, or at least cares less, about installment utilization,
so I'm expecting little or no difference in my updated FICO 2.
My memory is not as good as Thomas_Thumb's, but if I'm not mistaken he has previously posited that:while installment utilization percentage has no effect on FICO EQ 5 or TU FICO 4, it does have some effect on FICO 2 EX. If I have that right, and if Thomas_Thumb is right, there should be some upward movement on FICO 2, albeit not as dramatic as FICO 8's 31 points.
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:SJ - nice score rebound. I sometimes forget you are continually in Fico's new account penalty box so another new account or two is a non event.
Always
Look forward to your update on EX score 2 (Fico 98) as there is not much reported before/after data available on the mortgage Ficos for aggregate B/L. If you have access to your EX score 3 (Fico 04), please include before/after on that one as well.
Yes definitely. Thing is I don't want to pull the TU report until I'm sure TU has the update as well.
Regrettably I won't be able to divine anything about EQ 5 because, although the loan did report today to EQ, it never reported there with the high utilization number.
OK I pulled today's Experian report, with installment utilization down to 8.9% from the 89% it was at yesterday.
FICO 2 -- No change at all. 723 --> 723
Auto 8 -- 747 --> 793 +46
Auto 2 -- No change at all 725 --> 725
Bankcard 8 -- 770 --> 820 +50
FICO 3 -- 720 --> 731 +11
Bankcard 2 -- 708 --> 705 -3
FICO 9 -- 774 --> 801 +27
Auto 9 -- 782 --> 810 +28
Bankcard 9 -- 784 --> 808 +24
And of course
FICO 8 -- 754 --> 785 +31
So I guess the newer models care about installment utilization, and the older models are indifferent to it.
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:Looking at your data, it appears that Fico 9 has throttled back the high B/L penalty relative to Fico 8 or at least conditions the penalty based on other considerations - that is a good thing IMO.
Your mild score increase in EX score 3 but lack of change in EX score 2 is a bit unexpected. I would not have expected any change in EX score 3. Did your # of accounts reporting balances drop in your latest pull?
These pulls were only 1 day apart. There was no change in number of accounts reporting balances.
@Anonymous wrote:This is so helpful... but also very surprising, since there were test cases over the last several years that seemed to show that the EX mortgage score did care about installment utilization. I'd like to see this test result duplicated by others (owing to the mixed reports)
Well I'm convinced that it does not
SouthJ, what tools are there out there that pull the EX mortgage score?
I'm not aware of any source other than MyFICO.
myFICO premium is an option, since it is done monthly. Is MF still offering it?
I don't know if the monthly version is still available.
I'd be curious to hear what Revelate thinks about this, since he's long maintained that FICO 98 does care about installment util.
@Anonymous wrote:That's weird. If your EX FICO 2 (aka FICO 98) never changes no matter what you do, then the measuring tool is suspect and that casts some doubt on the installment util conclusion. I wonder if the CMS is buggy on your profile with respect to this one model.
I was exaggerating. It's bounced around a little. It's just lower, I guess that's what bothers me. It's ranged from 690 to 730 during the past year. It's just always around 50 or 60 points lower than FICO 8.
I just deleted my incorrect statement about it never moving. Sorry about that CGID.