Which flavor of FICO are mortgage lenders using? (98,04,08)

[Anonymous]

I want to buy a house but I do not want to start the loan application process until I am confident that I have come reasonably close to maxing out my credit score. Although I have zero late payments, no public records and one collection account on my TU that I am in the process of disputing (it relates to a speeding ticket in 1995), my FICO scores are only 697 (EQ) and 670 (TU).

My credit utilization is a little high at around 25% and each of my cc's is now under 50%.  I had a very stupid practice that I only recently stopped of cancelling credit card accounts under the mistaken impression that too much credit not being used would negatively impact my score. I have probably closed over 25 cc's with over $125k in credit because of this and my oldest card is only less than five years old instead of 20+years when I received my first CC. I also have an excess of credit inquiries because of this as well as related to relocating from San Diego to Miami.

I read that the 2008 FICO score more heavily weighs payment history and places less emphasis on legnth of credit history and credit inquires. This would help boost my credit score if this is what lenders are using. I would also note that my FAKO scores are 756 (EX), 711 (EQ) and 697 (TU).

[Anonymous]

The majority (51%? 80%? who knows?) of mortgage lenders use TU'04, some use TU'98. Of course, this only matters if TU is your middle score.

It will be years before the recent 2008/2009 versions are in widespread use ...

[RobertEG]

Whooaa! Back up!

You had a speeding ticket back in 1995 (14 years ago) that is still being reported by a collection agency to your CR?   WOW!

I know you said you are disputing this, and that seems to be your biggest bang for the buck, if you can get a major CA derog deleted!  A CA is probably hitting you for 20 neg pts, and is where I would put my emphasis.

If you had an unpaid ticket back in 1995, and the jurisdiction that issued the ticket did not bring legal action against you, and thus did not secure court ordered judgment, but merely turned it over to a CA for collection, the CA reporting is apparently beyond 7 1/2 years from the date of delinquency of the purported debt, which bars them under FCRA 605(a) and (c) from any posts to your CR, and mandates that the CRA can longer report this in any CR that they issue.

And it is also probably well beyond your state SOL.

Please provide details on the history of this speeding ticket. 

[Anonymous]

The collection account appears only on my TU report. Since that is my lowest score, I am not too worried about that one. The EQ is my middle score and I am getting dinged for inquiries, including two by Chase for CL increases where I specifically stated with great emphasis that I did not want to go through with the request if a hard pull was required. In each case, the rep assured me that only a soft pull was required. I am disputing with Chase to have these removed and they say they will review the recordings of my calls.

Regarding the speeding ticket incident, I got a speeding ticket in Nevada in 1995 while I was living in Arizona. I moved to California shortly after that with the ticket unpaid. In 2004, they placed my account with the Elko County collection agency. I figured that it was too old for them to collect anything from me so I ignored it for a couple of years. When I started to become more concerned about the impact on my credit score in 2006, I contacted them for a PFD but they refused.

Finally, in 2007, I decided to pay it off. This delinquent account was resulting in a hold being placed on my drivers license renewal in California so there really wasnt much left to do. I just sent a letter to TU to have the item removed and I will see how that turns out.