topic Trying to understand point differences in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Trying to understand point differences

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 14:27:39 GMT

I checked my FICO scores they are EQ- 575 EX-610 T- 627 but I also read that mortgage companies use the FICO 5 which is 499 on EQ ,506 Ex, 545 T !!??!?!? Please explain that!

We are really wanting to buy a house this year! But my current situation is I am an Authorized user on my husbands 2 Capital one Card CL-500 and 400 at the current moment they are maxed out , but thats where our question is do we pay them off to a zero balance or to 10-30% ? Also we have 2 personal loans together with a balace of 3000 and 2500 that we were going to pay to eliminate that debt , but will this hurt our score or should we just pay some down on it or pay off?? Other than that all I have is our vehicle payments on our credit and a few medical bills. I was also told I needed to get a secured credit card and put 200-300 on it and not use. I just want to do the right thing and not hurt my score even more. Please any advise!!!

Re: Trying to understand point differences

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 14:46:20 GMT

I hate to give less that favorable news, but planning to buy a house within the next year when your scores are averaging in the 500's isn't very realistic. You probably need a solid year of rebuilding before you can really consider this and then possibly another year of healthy credit behavior to put yourself in a position for reasonable interest rates. I'd focus on cleaning up your file in the meantime. Perhaps hit the rebuilding forum for ideas. Removing negative items, getting any balances you have paid down/off and of course making on time payments for the next year and beyond are the key components here while also not applying for any additional credit.

Re: Trying to understand point differences

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 14:49:43 GMT

We have been working on for a year, our scores were in the low 400s

Re: Trying to understand point differences

newhis — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 15:13:56 GMT

If you have your cards maxed out, you need to pay all but one to $0 and let that report, then the one card just pay it down to $5 and let it report.

If you only have those 2 loans, the best is to pay bot down to less than 8.9% the original amount and keep them open. If you pay all your loans and have no open loan, then you may want to follow the secured loan technique.

Then try to remove some badies from your reports.

You don't need your own cards for a good FICO 08 score. My DD only had a few AU cards for 2-3 years and her score when she applied to her first card was 770. I don't know about other models. Yes, you need to make sure the cards count in your report. DD has no other credit so the AUs do count on hers.