Opinions please.....

[Anonymous]

I'm in a dilemma where I'm trying to raise my mid fico score from 659 to 680 within the next two months in order to receive a decent interest rate on a mortgage.  I don't have much of a credit mix and I have one CC with a limit of $3500 (util currently 1%).  My question is should I have the credit card company raise the limit to 5 or 6k or would the inquiry offset any benefits of the CLI?  Also, I have 2 to 3 inq's set to fall off in June (7 total in the last 12 months) which leads me to another question.  What is the average increase in FICO once an inq has aged pass one year?   Thanks.

Woody

Message Edited by hstone on 04-18-2008 02:14 PM

Message Edited by hstone on 04-18-2008 05:42 PM

[Junejer]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm in a dilemma where I'm trying to raise my mid fico score from 659 to 680 within the next two months in order to receive a decent interest rate on a mortgage.  I don't have much of a credit mix and I have one CC with a balance of $3500 (util currently 1%).  My question is should I have the credit card company raise the limit to 5 or 6k or would the inquiry offset any benefits of the CLI?  Also, I have 2 to 3 inq's set to fall off in June (7 total in the last 12 months) which leads me to another question.  What is the average increase in FICO once an inq has aged pass one year?   Thanks.

Woody

Message Edited by hstone on 04-18-2008 02:14 PM

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Okay Woody. You owe $3,500, but you have $350,000 in available credit. Raising that one card to $5,000 or $6,000 is not going to make a big difference, I'm afraid. Your uti is already at 1%. There must be some other baddies holding you down, if your uti is that low.

What else are you experiencing on your CRs? Or was that 1% a typo?

[Anonymous]

Just to add to ByrdMan's excellent answer: When an inquiry turns one year old it stops counting in FICO scoring entirely.  The number of points that will be worth depends on how many other inquiries less than one year old you have on that report, as well as how high your score is.

Generally, the more inquiries you have, the less a single one hurts, so the less it will help when one of them stops counting.  Also, the higher your score, the MORE a single inquiry hurts.  So there is no one-size-fits-all answer.

Message Edited by cheddar on 04-18-2008 04:33 PM

[haulingthescoreup]

OK, I have a question here for OP. You have a CC with a $3,500 balance, but your util is only 1%? Do you really have $350,000 total credit limits in revolving credit, i.e., credit cards and maybe lines of credit?

When you're figuring the util that we talk about here, only add up the credit limits on your credit cards and unsecured lines of credit. Don't included your mortgage, car loans, etc --they're figured separately.

If that $3,500 balance is on a $10K card, for instance, and you have no other cards, then your util is actually 35% ($3,500 / $10,000.) And paying that down to a genuinely low util will help your scores. Alternatively, getting a CLI will help, too, but to get it under 10%, you'd have to have a credit limit of $39,000.

Can you verify my math, please? And if you really do have a total revolving CL of more than a third of a million bucks, then please accept my congratulations!

[Junejer]

Yep HTSU--$38,888.89.

[Anonymous]

I totally apologize for the misunderstanding.  My credit limit on the one card is 3500.  My utl on the card is 1%.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I totally apologize for the misunderstanding. My credit limit on the one card is 3500. My utl on the card is 1%.

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OK, gotcha! I think we were just misreading. My head was spinning there, lol...

I don't know that a CLI will help you. Once you're at 1%, it's hard to get better than that.

I got one or two points whenever an inq went over a year, plus another 3-5 points when the account that came with the inq also hit one year. So conceivably, 3 inqs (and accounts) times 5-6 points would be enough, but I'd hate to count on it.

Do you have a precise date for the mortgage? Even though we usually say no apps 6 months before an inq, one more revolving might actually help. You might get creative and ask if your prospective mortgage company also has a CC line.

Your best bet, if you're pre-qualifying with a mortgage lender, is to ask him or her what your best bet would be.

[smallfry]

I might be tempted to look into a card and mortgage with Pentagon Federal Credit Union. Check out their website and see if you can beat their deals on mortgages.

[Junejer]

Woody, back to my first post.

Raising that one card to $5,000 or $6,000 is not going to make a big difference, I'm afraid. Your uti is already at 1%. There must be some other baddies holding you down, if your uti is that low.

What else are you experiencing on your CRs?

[Anonymous]

Hstone, here's an even better answer for you: just wait.

If your uti is already low and you have multiple accounts in good standing, time is on your side. The housing market isn't going to recover anytime soon. There's no need to hurry on a mortgage.

Just keep paying on time, every time, and keep your uti low. Pull your credit report, and work on your most recent baddie. See if you can GW, PFD, or whatever. That will help you.

If you have Score Watch of the Suze Orman kit, go to the FICO score simulator and see how much just showing up on time for the next six months to a year will help your scores.