Six accounts with balances down to four with balances

[BGMWPD320]

I know my TU and EX scores will go up when they remove my only late payment (from January).  Chase said they have already removed it so I am just waiting for it to show up.....well to disappear.  I am hopping to get an auto loan next week so I will apply for a BoA CC after I find out the verdict of the car loan. 

[Anonymous]

Have you tried calling your cc's to see if you can get any CLI's?   That would lower your UTIL, that and paying down your existing balances of course.   Just check with the ccc's you call and make sure they won't hit you with a hard INQ for the CLI.    Some of them should be doing a review every 6 months anyway, assuming you are using the card.

And I would focus on the ones with the highest UTL.  Tell the cc that you would use it more, but your UTIL is too high and is hurting your credit score too much.   If they raise the CL, you will charge more.  Seems to work for me most of the time.

[BGMWPD320]

You know it is bad when Orchard is your high CL with a $500 limit.  I also have a Capital One with a $500 CL but that should increase to $750 next month.  I have a request in with Cap. One to see if they will increase my limit so I can make a BT to get away from my ridiculous Dell APR!  Actually, Dell is my high CL with a 2k limit.

[Anonymous]

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BGMWPD320 wrote:

Phoenix, here are my four negative factors: 

1. High Credit Usage (50%, that was before I paid off two CC)

2. New Account (two months ago)

3. Short Account History (oldest 4 yrs. 7 months / average 2 years)

4. Too many accounts with balances (6 accounts, that was before I paid off two CC)

I know there isn't anything I can do about #2 or #3 so I can only "fix" #1 and #4.  I am going to call Orchard tomorrow, if they are open, and see if I can get my lousy $500 CL increased to $750 or $1000.

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Those factors are listed in order of impact. #2 will not be a problem in 10 months if you apply for nothing else and it will slide down the list as the months go on. #3 isn't a big deal, it won't keep you from a 760+ score soon and it if you have a clean report with low utility it will likely be #1 on your list for years.

#4 is not huge but it could be 10-15 points. If you can get the number reporting down to 1 or 2 you might see a 10 point increase.

That said the major one to worry about it #1. I would continue to pay down your cards, not apply for a new card unless you need it (a new card would tank your average age some). Once your util and balances are down you should have a 720+ score on EQ. Same for the others once you get your collection removed.

[BGMWPD320]

I am working on getting my util % down.  I should be able to pay it down to under 10% next month.  I have to pay my dang Dell account off because it is killing me to see $35+/month in finance charges!

[BGMWPD320]

Update:

1. High Credit Usage (50%, that was before I paid off two CC)  I just paid off my Dell account which means my util % will be under 10%!

2. New Account (two months ago)

3. Short Account History (oldest 4 yrs. 7 months / average 2 years)

4. Too many accounts with balances (6 accounts, that was before I paid off two CC)  I now am only reporting three accounts with balances (one CC, one auto and one mortgage).

I will keep everyone posted on the increase.  Anyone venture to make a guess at how much of an increase I'll see?

[haulingthescoreup]

Nice work!

If newness is your only credit sin, I'd make a guess at 40-50 points. Util carries a tremendous amount of weight when you don't have other uglies like collections on there.

But you should know that I'm terrible at guessing score jumps!

For fun, you can try this on the simulator page. Instead of clicking "Simulate best option", scroll down a bit to "(blank) of your total Revolving/Open Account balance." Enter whatever amount you have paid since the balances on that report, and be sure to click the "Simulate FICO score" button underneath that option. You'll get a range of possible scores, and with the added bonus of fewer accounts with balances, I'd guess it would be toward the higher figure.

The sims are certainly not gospel, but they're pretty useful on predicting changes from util. Once the util is down, keeping balances down and letting your new accounts age will result in a steady score increase.

BTW, for anyone who hasn't played with the sims before, if you click "Simulate best option" and you get "pay down balances over the next 24 months", that doesn't mean pay 1/24th of your balances each month for two years. (I got this once with a $7 total balance.) It means pay down your balances as much as you can, as soon as you can, and then behave yourself for the next two years, and your scores will be around that figure. I call it the keep on keepin' on plan.

[BGMWPD320]

EQ bumped me up 12 points since I am now reporting one card with a zero balance.  The other two haven't reported yet so maybe I will gain a couple of more points for having three cards reporting zero balances.  I still can't wait to see the bump for having a new, lower util (8%).