topic Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

iowe — Mon, 29 May 2017 18:37:23 GMT

Does anyone around here have a fico 08 near 850 without having a mortgage account on your credit report? Is having a mortgage a big factor in getting upwards of 800-850?

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

medicgrrl — Mon, 29 May 2017 18:38:26 GMT

You might have better luck having this moved to the scoring forum.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

iowe — Mon, 29 May 2017 18:40:14 GMT

Ahh.. yeah my mistake. Hopefully an admin will move this.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Anonymous — Mon, 29 May 2017 19:24:07 GMT

800 it can be done DW has 765 no morg , no installment debt, Average age under 2 years once her average age hits 2 again she should hit 800 We are thinking in th fall for trying to get a Penfed cloc to pa for storm damage an a few more updates at the house.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

simplynoir — Mon, 29 May 2017 19:17:55 GMT

Yes, you can get 800+ FICO scores without an open installment loan reporting on your CR because I do. Having said that I'm sure that it's more important to have one than not if you want to maximize your scores. Pretty sure I'm an outlier for that.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Anonymous — Mon, 29 May 2017 21:32:48 GMT

@simplynoir wrote:
Yes, you can get 800+ FICO scores without an open installment loan reporting on your CR because I do. Having said that I'm sure that it's more important to have one than not if you want to maximize your scores. Pretty sure I'm an outlier for that.

Hi SimplyN! I think our OP is asking specifically about a mortgage -- not the general issue of any installment account. Great to hear that about you, however!

To our OP:

Having a score > 800 with no mortgage is extremely easy. Lots of people have that. Even a score in the 830s with no mortgage is pretty easy.

A perfect 850 with no mortgage appears to be more challenging -- people who report an 850 often do have a mortgage. Nevertheless there have been multiple people report an 850 with no mortgage (or at least that's my memory).

Regardless, and as I am sure you probably know, there's no practical advantage to having a perfect 850. You don't get any better rates with an 850 than with an 800 (say).

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

newhis — Tue, 30 May 2017 03:32:37 GMT

My TU FICO was between 800-810 before using the SSL technique.

My latest TU FICO is 842. No mortgage.

My DW hit 800 TU FICO with less than 3 years history and auto-loan, no mortgage.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Anonymous — Tue, 30 May 2017 08:38:11 GMT

Yes...I have an EX 850 score without ever having a mortgage on my reports. I do not think it's possible to go past 800 without an installment loan of some sort. My score was stagnant in the mid 700's for several years with only revolving accounts reporting. When I leased a car, it shot up 60 points taking me beyond the 800 threshold.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

HeavenOhio — Tue, 30 May 2017 10:18:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Yes...I have an EX 850 score without ever having a mortgage on my reports. I do not think it's possible to go past 800 without an installment loan of some sort. My score was stagnant in the mid 700's for several years with only revolving accounts reporting. When I leased a car, it shot up 60 points taking me beyond the 800 threshold.

I don't have anything other than credit cards on my report, Until I had a new card report last month, my Equifax FICO 8 sat at 803 whenever I was at AZEO, as long as it was a major card rather than a store card reporting the balance. Along with that, two of my mortgage scores were above 800. Right now, my Equifax FICO 8 is sitting at 789, but AZEO would bring it up to about 798. And without going back to check numbers, I believe that even with the new card, AZEO would bump at least one of my mortgage scores to back above 800.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Revelate — Tue, 30 May 2017 14:45:19 GMT

FWIW and I know I'm the only one that actively promotes this, I can't find any difference between an Alliant SSL and my mortgage for either FICO 8 or FICO 04. Not sure on FICO 9 or FICO 98 but there's still only the one reason code that anyone has ever reported and it's all installment lines.

I should've kept better data records but unfortunately my file was really busy post mortgage closing, but I lost nearly identical points when my mortgage reported that I gained from my original installment loan testing.

We need to find that stupid upper bound breakpoint I guess to settle it, and then have someone walk a mortgage vs. a SSL across that boundary... but to answer the question one doesn't need a mortgage, and I not positive that one even needs an installment loan to hit 850; however, having an installment loan of any type helps mix of credit, and having installment loans at a pretty aggregate utilization ratio definitely is a winner from a FICO 8 scoring perspective and therefore presumably gets one to an 850 faster if one cares about such things.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

dabo1502 — Wed, 31 May 2017 02:48:30 GMT

All 3 of my Fico are above 800 (see signature). I have NO mortgage; I do have 2 installments - college loans & vehicle loan.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Leonardc2 — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 15:14:26 GMT

I am currently at 834 fico eight with Equifax, 817 Fico 8 with Trans Union and 836 Fico 8 with Experian, all without a mortgage account. I do have several credit cards and two auto loans.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 18:58:06 GMT

Just to recap, there have been many reports of people reaching perfect scores (850) with no mortgage, so it is certainly easy to break 800 without one.

Indeed, if you have a fairly new mortgage, the result will be to lower your score rather than help it, since it will cause your installment utilization to go up to a high level (likely over 91%).

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Thomas_Thumb — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 22:04:37 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
FWIW and I know I'm the only one that actively promotes this, I can't find any difference between an Alliant SSL and my mortgage for either FICO 8 or FICO 04. Not sure on FICO 9 or FICO 98 but there's still only the one reason code that anyone has ever reported and it's all installment lines.

I should've kept better data records but unfortunately my file was really busy post mortgage closing, but I lost nearly identical points when my mortgage reported that I gained from my original installment loan testing.

We need to find that stupid upper bound breakpoint I guess to settle it, and then have someone walk a mortgage vs. a SSL across that boundary... but to answer the question one doesn't need a mortgage, and I am not positive that one even needs an installment loan to hit 850; however, having an installment loan of any type helps mix of credit, and having installment loans at a pretty aggregate utilization ratio definitely is a winner from a FICO 8 scoring perspective and therefore presumably gets one to an 850 faster if one cares about such things.

^ Correct one does not need an open installment loan of any type to have a Fico 8 score of 850. We have data from Ubuntu confirming this. He had an 850 score with only 4 open accounts - 3 credit cards and 1 AMEX charge card as I recall. However, his 850 was fleeting and I have not seen any other reports of 850 without an open installment loan. In contrast, quite a few posters with an open mortgage report 850 scores while having B/L ratios in the 60% to 95% range.

It does appear that an open installment loan may nominally be worth "30 bonus points" on Fico 8 if the loan is "optimized" and ones score is not buffered.

For Classic Fico 8 someone with an open mortgage will not benefit from adding another type of installment loan. However, industry enhanced Fico versions mention "no auto loan" as a negative reason code (I've seen that one listed). I do have a mortgage but suspect adding an auto loan (even at a moderately high B/L) could boost my Fico industry enhanced Fico scores (particularly F9 versions) - unfortunately, adding an SSL loan would not have the same effect.

P.S. How can one test whether an open mortgage "awards" full Fico 8 installment points at a high B/L whereas many other loan types do not? [e.g. mortgages and/or loans with a long payment history awarded points at a B/L much higher than the 9% threshold for a short payment history SSL]

One option might be if someone with a sub 850 score and single installment loan (mortgage) - at a "high" B/L - were to pay off their mortgage. Record Fico score prior to pay off, pay off loan and then get updated Fico scores prior to acquiring a new loan. A couple qualifiers would be a minimum 2 year payment history on the mortgage and a clean profile because impact may vary dirty vs clean scorecard - greatest impact if clean. Situations where this may be possible to obtain: A relocation where old mortgage is paid off before new house acquired and a refi where there is a gap between payoff and new loan showing up.

I'd conclude that a 25 to 35 point score drop indicates most if not all ponts had already been awarded at the posters B/L% with nothing more to be gained at a single digit B/L%. However, if 0 to 5 points were lost then there is no threshold at/above the posters reported B/L.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

jamie123 — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 00:30:02 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
FWIW and I know I'm the only one that actively promotes this, I can't find any difference between an Alliant SSL and my mortgage for either FICO 8 or FICO 04. Not sure on FICO 9 or FICO 98 but there's still only the one reason code that anyone has ever reported and it's all installment lines.

I should've kept better data records but unfortunately my file was really busy post mortgage closing, but I lost nearly identical points when my mortgage reported that I gained from my original installment loan testing.

We need to find that stupid upper bound breakpoint I guess to settle it, and then have someone walk a mortgage vs. a SSL across that boundary... but to answer the question one doesn't need a mortgage, and I am not positive that one even needs an installment loan to hit 850; however, having an installment loan of any type helps mix of credit, and having installment loans at a pretty aggregate utilization ratio definitely is a winner from a FICO 8 scoring perspective and therefore presumably gets one to an 850 faster if one cares about such things.
^ Correct one does not need an open installment loan of any type to have a Fico 8 score of 850. We have data from Ubuntu confirming this. He had an 850 score with only 4 open accounts - 3 credit cards and 1 AMEX charge card as I recall. However, his 850 was fleeting and I have not seen any other reports of 850 without an open installment loan. In contrast, quite a few posters with an open mortgage report 850 scores while having B/L ratios in the 60% to 95% range.

It does appear that an open installment loan may nominally be worth "30 bonus points" on Fico 8 if the loan is "optimized" and ones score is not buffered.

For Classic Fico 8 someone with an open mortgage will not benefit from adding another type of installment loan. However, industry enhanced Fico versions mention "no auto loan" as a negative reason code (I've seen that one listed). I do have a mortgage but suspect adding an auto loan (even at a moderately high B/L) could boost my Fico industry enhanced Fico scores (particularly F9 versions) - unfortunately, adding an SSL loan would not have the same effect.

P.S. How can one test whether an open mortgage "awards" full Fico 8 installment points at a high B/L whereas many other loan types do not? [e.g. mortgages and/or loans with a long payment history awarded points at a B/L much higher than the 9% threshold for a short payment history SSL]

One option might be if someone with a sub 850 score and single installment loan (mortgage) - at a "high" B/L - were to pay off their mortgage. Record Fico score prior to pay off, pay off loan and then get updated Fico scores prior to acquiring a new loan. A couple qualifiers would be a minimum 2 year payment history on the mortgage and a clean profile because impact may vary dirty vs clean scorecard - greatest impact if clean. Situations where this may be possible to obtain: A relocation where old mortgage is paid off before new house acquired and a refi where there is a gap between payoff and new loan showing up.

I'd conclude that a 25 to 35 point score drop indicates most if not all ponts had already been awarded at the posters B/L% with nothing more to be gained at a single digit B/L%. However, if 0 to 5 points were lost then there is no threshold at/above the posters reported B/L.

I'm wondering if a mortgage might perhaps use number of payments instead of B/L percentage when being calculated into scores? Or perhaps number of months with good payment history? It takes quite a while to pay a 30 year mortgage's staring balance down 10% to 90% and I seem to see people with 2 or 3 year old mortgages with very high scores if not 850s.

Your thoughts?

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Revelate — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 00:05:31 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
FWIW and I know I'm the only one that actively promotes this, I can't find any difference between an Alliant SSL and my mortgage for either FICO 8 or FICO 04. Not sure on FICO 9 or FICO 98 but there's still only the one reason code that anyone has ever reported and it's all installment lines.

I should've kept better data records but unfortunately my file was really busy post mortgage closing, but I lost nearly identical points when my mortgage reported that I gained from my original installment loan testing.

We need to find that stupid upper bound breakpoint I guess to settle it, and then have someone walk a mortgage vs. a SSL across that boundary... but to answer the question one doesn't need a mortgage, and I am not positive that one even needs an installment loan to hit 850; however, having an installment loan of any type helps mix of credit, and having installment loans at a pretty aggregate utilization ratio definitely is a winner from a FICO 8 scoring perspective and therefore presumably gets one to an 850 faster if one cares about such things.
^ Correct one does not need an open installment loan of any type to have a Fico 8 score of 850. We have data from Ubuntu confirming this. He had an 850 score with only 4 open accounts - 3 credit cards and 1 AMEX charge card as I recall. However, his 850 was fleeting and I have not seen any other reports of 850 without an open installment loan. In contrast, quite a few posters with an open mortgage report 850 scores while having B/L ratios in the 60% to 95% range.

It does appear that an open installment loan may nominally be worth "30 bonus points" on Fico 8 if the loan is "optimized" and ones score is not buffered.

For Classic Fico 8 someone with an open mortgage will not benefit from adding another type of installment loan. However, industry enhanced Fico versions mention "no auto loan" as a negative reason code (I've seen that one listed). I do have a mortgage but suspect adding an auto loan (even at a moderately high B/L) could boost my Fico industry enhanced Fico scores (particularly F9 versions) - unfortunately, adding an SSL loan would not have the same effect.

P.S. How can one test whether an open mortgage "awards" full Fico 8 installment points at a high B/L whereas many other loan types do not? [e.g. mortgages and/or loans with a long payment history awarded points at a B/L much higher than the 9% threshold for a short payment history SSL]

One option might be if someone with a sub 850 score and single installment loan (mortgage) - at a "high" B/L - were to pay off their mortgage. Record Fico score prior to pay off, pay off loan and then get updated Fico scores prior to acquiring a new loan. A couple qualifiers would be a minimum 2 year payment history on the mortgage and a clean profile because impact may vary dirty vs clean scorecard - greatest impact if clean. Situations where this may be possible to obtain: A relocation where old mortgage is paid off before new house acquired and a refi where there is a gap between payoff and new loan showing up.

I'd conclude that a 25 to 35 point score drop indicates most if not all ponts had already been awarded at the posters B/L% with nothing more to be gained at a single digit B/L%. However, if 0 to 5 points were lost then there is no threshold at/above the posters reported B/L.

There's a non-zero chance I move and sell my condo and I almost assuredly wouldn't buy a new place immediately unless I stay here in LA and that's an unlikely event at this point.

Mortgage >2 years, current open installment loan at 4% still which I'm babying along for as long as possible... if I shift, that I think would be a similar test to what you describe.

Mix of credit may be different than installment utilization, actually it probably is but unfortunately people have conflated the two over the years here right or wrong.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Thomas_Thumb — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 17:22:57 GMT

@jamie123 wrote:

I'm wondering if a mortgage might perhaps use number of payments instead of B/L percentage when being calculated into scores? Or perhaps number of months with good payment history? It takes quite a while to pay a 30 year mortgage's staring balance down 10% to 90% and I seem to see people with 2 or 3 year old mortgages with very high scores if not 850s.

Your thoughts?

Hello Jamie123:

Payment history is preferentially weighed toward installment loans, more so than toward credit cards. I believe those without an open installment loan are leaving "payment history points" on the table with Fico 8 in addition to credit mix points. Yes, I think # of on time payments is looked at as the primary scoring factor for mortgages. My (unsubstantiated) belief is the majority of points (say 2/3rds) might be "awarded" for mortgages after 2 or 3 years of ontime payments regardless of remaining B/L ratio. The remaining 1/3 would be reserved for dropping below some to be verified B/L threshold.

It appears to me that taking a new installment loan to under 9% B/L is a loop hole shortcut to getting the payment history points without an established payment history. Perhaps these short history loans are treated more like revolving credit cards relative to payment history.

If a profile had only one open installment loan (say a 5 year Auto loan) would Fico 8 points differ if:

1) The 5 year Auto loan had 3 years payment history and 25% B/L remaining were paid off.

2) The 5 year Auto loan had 9 months payment history and 25% B/L remaining were paid off.

I suspect more points would be lost in case 1. Said another way I suspect fewer points would be gained by paying the remaining balance down to under 9% B/L.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

VinnyofLegend — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 21:00:20 GMT

I'm not sure if this is of any interest, but my EQ FICO9 from NFCU hit 850 today. Don't have and never had a mortgage.

Re: Reaching above an 800 score without a mortgage

Girlzilla88 — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 17:18:07 GMT

That is awesome!