topic Re: Optimize Mortgage Score in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Optimize Mortgage Score

tjmolly — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:10:57 GMT

Anyone know what moves mortgage scores quickly? What does it weigh more? CCs? Installment %? Anyone?

Re: Optimize Mortgage Score

StartingOver10 — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:40:29 GMT

Take a look at Understanding FICO Scoring section - there are some posters there that "test" various options to see what affects scoring. These tests are for FICO 8's but sometimes a reference is also made for the mortgage scores. Some of the discussions are fascinating.

Re: Optimize Mortgage Score

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 02:09:31 GMT

CC utilization at 0 on all cards, but one at just a couple of dollars but under 1%. An open installment loan. I optimized my file this way and it made a triple digit point difference in my mortgage score.

Now that I'm maxed out on some cards my mortgage score took an 80 point hit.

I refinanced my cars and there was an overlap where neither loan was reporting as open. That cost me an average of 20 points per bureau.

That's just my findings on a clean file with a very low AAoA. New credit cards didn't impact my score at all, but I was already at 7 months AAoA. My mortgage actually raised my mortgage score a handful of points too.

YMMV.

Re: Optimize Mortgage Score

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 05:57:21 GMT

People will be able to best suggest what steps to take if they know where you are starting from. Here are the kinds of things people would need to know.

Do you have any derogs? (Lates, chargeoffs, collections, judgments, liens, etc.) If so, describe them in detail.

How many open credit cards do you have?

How many of these are showing a $0 balance?

What is your total CC utilization?

Are any of your CCs at an individual utilization of 49% or higher? If so, give details.

Do you have any open installment loans? If so describe the original amount of the loan and the amount you currently owe on it.

What is the age of your oldest account?

What is your average age of accounts?

How many accounts total do you have (open and closed)?