one week Plan

[Anonymous]

this is what I have reporting

Current scores approximately 690 with 9% total uti

2 store cc $0

one cc  311/5600

LOC.  1100/3000

card 680/10000

next to report is LOC...will report with $0 balance

Then 311/5600 cc will report with $0 balance.

need to make payment l. 680/10000 card....have funds to pay, but need to keep a balance on.  Total limits about 22500.  

Need best score possible for mtg....no time to "test" my bucket.  What would be the best bet to have 680/10000 card report at?

since I have 3/5 accounts reporting a balance, and the LOC reporting >35%, I am hoping for 10 points at least, more would be better!  I have a 9.1 AAoA, no negatives in last year, some 1.5-2years and beyond.  One Hard inquiry in last year.  Really hoping that the LOC uti is hurting me quite a bit (does shoe up as a negative factor).  Funny how you hope things are hurting you when you are changing them!

[Anonymous]

Hey CF!  Best of luck with your mortgage.  If I understand you right, you are trying to improve your score as fast as possible for a mortgage, and you have one week to do it in.  Is that right?

It sounds like you are paying all revolving accounts down to $0 except one, and that one account you want advice on the ideal amount for it to show.  Given what you have described, I think that the remaining card is fine where it is or you can pay it down a little more if you really want to.  Your overall utilization (since you are not strapped for cash) should be around 1-3%.  You could pay that account down to $20 or leave it at $680 or go in between.  Likely all the same.

Another question: when you say that your score are around 690, are those the mortgage-version of the FICO?  The mortgage version often gives people different values than the FICO 8 which is the most commonly given FICO on credit monitoring sites.

PS.  Do you have any installment loans on your reports?  (car loans, student laons, personal loans, mortgage?)  If so, are they open or closed?

[Anonymous]

I was at 605 on the mtg fico. Before I ran my reports, a few things happened
1) one of my accounts with lates from this year had all lates removed
2) USBank LOC reported from maxed out to 1100 (I hadn't realized that it doesn't report until 31st, so my lay down hadn't registered)
3) paid 6500 on 10000 account that is now at 680. (So had 2 accounts about maxed)
Since I ran my reports, with each of the CB monitoring sites (Experian.com, Transunion.com, and Equifax.com), I was in 670 range
Then, I got a 5 year CC to delete my account including all lates 1.5 years plus...thinned my credit record from 20 to 19, but bumped my AAoA to 9+ from 8+
got a medical collection (less than $100) from May '15 removed from all 3 bureaus
One of my (Lo uti) cc also reported at $0. Previous was 4/5 cards reporting, so Right now is 3/5 reporting.
Working on some mtg lates that shouldn't be reporting (some should) from 1.5 years+ ...waiting for results.
I've had installment loans but only open one is 1 student loan.

I realize the scores I'm using aren't exact, but they aren't Fakos either. Experian is Fico 8 and TU is vantage score. Maybe I'll get lucky and mtg fico will be higher...made lots of changes to my profile anyway!!!

[Anonymous]

OK.  Good to hear that you have one open installment loan (the student loan).  How much was the loan originally for and how much do you owe on it now? Depending on what those two numbers are, there may be something you can do there to help yourself too.  (Though you may choose to just save the money toward your house DP.)

Best of luck....

[Anonymous]

Oh No!  Don't tell me that!  My student loan originally was for 44K, but because I deferred it for 2 years, I owe about 400 more than the original balance listed.   Maybe worth getting it below original balance?  Would suck to even pay it down to 90%...would that really do me any good?

[Anonymous]

Also, out of my 4 cc and 1 LOC, is it better to have my major Citi visa Cc to report a balance, or my large dept store (actually Nebraska Furniture Mart) card report a balance? Or does it matter?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Oh No!  Don't tell me that!  My student loan originally was for 44K, but because I deferred it for 2 years, I owe about 400 more than the original balance listed.   Maybe worth getting it below original balance?  Would suck to even pay it down to 90%...would that really do me any good?

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That's a great question.  There's a guy on the forum (who goes by the handle Revelate) who is especially interested in questions about the various places where a person gets points for paying down his installment loan.  It is possible, now that you mention it, that a person gets rewarded for going from owing more than the total amount of the loan was originally for to less than that total amount.  I have no idea but it is possible.

Given that you are pressed for time, you may want to go to that thread, go to the very end oif it, and post that question.  He visits that thread pretty much any time anybody adds to it, I think.  I suggest you be brief and clear.  You may want to say something like this:

I have one open installment loan.  It is a student loan that went into deferment.  I now owe more than the original amount of the loan.  How likely is it that I might experience a slight score boost by paying the loan down to 99% of the original amount?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Also, out of my 4 cc and 1 LOC, is it better to have my major Citi visa Cc to report a balance, or my large dept store (actually Nebraska Furniture Mart) card report a balance? Or does it matter?

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Of your two cards, was either of them opened recently?

There are a number of old reason codes that seems to imply that FICO gets more anxious when your recently opened cards show a balance than it does when an old card does.  The codes say things like:

Amount owed on recently revolving accounts is too high.

My guess is that FICO wouldn't care (that reason code is old and may not be part of the mortgage model)  but since you have no time to experiment, and you really don't care which you put it on, I'd avoid putting it on a card that is really new.  If both cards are at least a year old, then maybe the major card if that's easy.

[Anonymous]

I don't have ANY new accounts in last 2 years...that collection that was added (now deleted) in May was giving me a flag for too new of an account. However according to TU vantage score, I got 2 points for it reporting as paid , and 5 points when it got deleted. Very Frustrating!
My CC is 10+ years old and the other store account is 5 years old.

[Anonymous]

Since both cards are older, I don't see a reason to choose one over the other for the one card you want to have a positive balance.  The major card is easier to use, so I have a bias in its favor but it likely does not matter.