@DR527 wrote:I have been working on my credit for about a year and a half. I was able to pull my bad scores up from the low 500's, to the low to mid 600's. The past 3 months there has been next to no. Activity on any of my scores. I have four cards, two store charge cards (Pep boys/ Kohls). And I have to credit cards (Costco Citi/ Credit one). I use all four. But I never carry a balance on the Kohl's/Credit One/ or Pep Boys. And I have a $3500 limit on my Citi. And I keep a balance of around a $100-$200 on it month to month. I'm beginning to get furstated. I'm not sure if I should opened up more cards. Or is this as high as my credit is going to be for right now?
I think you just have to be patient. There are no doubt some negatives in your file which will age off in time, and over time the age of accounts, lack of inquiries, etc will also pull your scores up. If you want to speed up the process you could send some verification letters to the bureaus.
DO NOT OPEN MORE CC ACCOUNTS!
If you already have 4 open and active credit card accounts, you are primed for some excellent growth.
GARDEN, GARDEN, and then GARDEN some more. At this point, you should hit the garden for the next 6 to 12 months and your Scores will rise incrementally.
If your Scores were initially down in the 500's level and then you open a few cc accounts, it's common to see a good score jump. You already experienced this initial jump.
Now, it's up to your payment pattern, and how you handle the accounts that you do have to continue to see your score rise OVER TIME.
To continue to open more and more accounts on the hopes of seeing your score improve is a fallacy. If opening accounts was all that was necessary, one could simply open up 30, 40, or 50 accounts in hopes of getting into the 800's territory.
Unfortunately, it's not that easy, and Fico scores don't work that way. It's often been said that credit is a marathon, not a Sprint.
BTW, if your in with lenders like Citi and such, that's evidence that your headed in the right direction. All that's left is the passage of time and proper management of your account portfolio, and in 6 to 12 months, you will be golden!
Best credit wishes to you!
@DR527 wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
@DR527 wrote:I have been working on my credit for about a year and a half. I was able to pull my bad scores up from the low 500's, to the low to mid 600's. The past 3 months there has been next to no. Activity on any of my scores. I have four cards, two store charge cards (Pep boys/ Kohls). And I have to credit cards (Costco Citi/ Credit one). I use all four. But I never carry a balance on the Kohl's/Credit One/ or Pep Boys. And I have a $3500 limit on my Citi. And I keep a balance of around a $100-$200 on it month to month. I'm beginning to get furstated. I'm not sure if I should opened up more cards. Or is this as high as my credit is going to be for right now?
I think you just have to be patient. There are no doubt some negatives in your file which will age off in time, and over time the age of accounts, lack of inquiries, etc will also pull your scores up. If you want to speed up the process you could send some verification letters to the bureaus.
I thought that the first month. And the second month. But the end of this month would be about 90 days of slow to no movement. Is that normal? Have I grown my score as much as I can with the way I have been trying? Is it time to shake things up and try something different?
If you apply now, you're going to hurt your score with inquiries and if you're lucky -- and get the card -- you'll (a) hurt your score with a new account abd (b) get a low starting limit. But if you're bound and determined to try, I would suggest going to the Capital One site and see if you're prequalified, or applying with a credit union that's not too hard on rebuilders, like, e.g., Navy Federal.
If you have no installment loans, you could pick up some points by adding a share secured loan with Alliant Credit Union, as Vizion suggested: Join Alliant Credit Union, take out a $500+ savings account, take out a $500 share secured loan secured by the savings account with a 48 or 60 month term, decline or cancel autopay, transfer $455 from the savings account towards the loan balance bringing the balance down to $45. Pay that off slowly over the balance of the term. Once the $45 balance reports the positive effects will be felt. On the downside, you will be getting a new account, which has a slightly negative effect on your scores.
@DR527 wrote:Garden? Is that the same as wait?
Yes around here we use 'gardening' to describe not making any applications that would result in a hard pull or new account. It's ok, while gardening, to make soft pull CLI requests.
Start working the negatives if you can as 4 revolving tradelines (credit cards count as such) is enough for scoring purposes; do tack on the SSL if you don't have installment history, easy FICO win that doesn't even tie up money for more than a month really.
Beyond that, well, scores flatline after a while unless something substantial happens. I've been stuck at 693/700 for EQ FICO 5 for example for going on 3 years now: 693 with 3+ inquiries, 700 with 2 inquiries. By the time the big wins come for me with a Cali tax lien poofing and my 2010 deliquencies expiring, I'll have been at this for 6 years. If you can't get the negatives off, it's a long and tedious road. "Supposed" to suck I guess for things like tax liens and BK's but meh.
9 more months for me.
