topic Re: When do i hit the yellow? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

When do i hit the yellow?

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 04:51:53 GMT

Im very anxious to get into the yellow "good" range. At what score do I officially move into the yellow?

Re: When do i hit the yellow?

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 16:19:17 GMT

BUMP

Re: When do i hit the yellow?

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 16:38:36 GMT

From here: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Bad-Not-Good-Good-Very-Good-Great/td-p/3712248/page/2

Quote:

According to CreditCheckTotal's website, which uses FICO 08 scores:

scoreType:["FICO®"],
scoreRange:[
   {low:800,high:850,desc:"Exceptional",rangeLabel:"+800",color:"#1ac618"},
   {low:740,high:799,desc:"Very Good",rangeLabel:"740-799",color:"#98d30c"},
   {low:670,high:739,desc:"Good",rangeLabel:"670-739",color:"#f7c708"},
   {low:580,high:669,desc:"Fair",rangeLabel:"580-669",color:"#ff7b2a"},
   {low:300,high:579,desc:"Poor",rangeLabel:"< 580",color:"#cd3433"}
]

According to myfico.com's website, which also uses FICO 08 scores (main scores):

var score_range=[579, 669, 739, 799, 900];

Both websites match and to translate that into human readable text:

300-579 POOR
580-669 FAIR
670-739 GOOD
740-799 VERY GOOD
800-850 EXCEPTIONAL

Re: When do i hit the yellow?

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 16:58:10 GMT

Thank You!!!!!! Im so much closer than I thought!

Re: When do i hit the yellow?

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 17:01:43 GMT

Congrats!

The downside is that watching your FICO scores go up is like watching water boil, haha!

Re: When do i hit the yellow?

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2017 17:20:00 GMT

Hi Songburd. Dividing FICO scores into ranges with an English word attached, a word that gives varying degrees of criticism or approval, is largely arbitrary, A lender or CC issuer won't look at your score and try to figure which of these "categories" you belong to. The lender has its own categories based on its own policies and the specific product it is selling.

Mortgages are the closest thing perhaps to a stable universal set of score cutoffs. Those would be 740 for best rates on the mortgage itself (assuming you can put down 20% as a down payment) and 760 for best rates if you need to buy PMI (i.e. you cannot put 20% down).

Another useful benchmark might be 780 -- which is a score beyond which no lender or CC issuer will give you any better deal of any kind on any product. (In other words you will get not better deal for having an 842 than if you have a 780.)

A "good" FICO score is the one which will give you access to the products you need -- but that varies hugely from person to person.

A reasonable long term goal would be one day to cross the 800 line. Untill then, focus on making incremental progress, by diagnosing (with the help of people here) what is not ideal about your current reports and developing a plan to change that.

Hope that helps.

Re: When do i hit the yellow?

Anonymous — Mon, 22 May 2017 13:34:14 GMT

I have to say that it's kinda irksome that the "Credit Card Center" ad at the top of the page goes by a different scale - 650-699, according to that ad, is only "Fair", whereas according to FICO itself, 669 and over is "Good". Then again, as CGID says, it's all kind of arbitrary anyway.

P.S. I didn't know that 780 is the highest score that you can expect to get lenders to give you better loan deals at, in practical/real-world terms. That's quite interesting and puts a different complexion, to me at least, on whether it's really worth it to pursue higher credit scores beyond that 780 mark.

Re: When do i hit the yellow?

Anonymous — Mon, 22 May 2017 13:39:37 GMT

Higher scores give you breathing room on score drops from new accounts, utilization posting, etc.