topic Re: Individual and aggregate utilization in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Individual and aggregate utilization

NYC_Fella — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 12:23:27 GMT

I know there have been volumes written on this subject, but I am still a tiny bit confused.

For aggregate utilization, is there a threshold below 5% that matters? Is 2% better than 4%, for example?

Also, for an individual single card (the O in AZEO), what is the lowest optimum utilization?

Thanks in advance!

Re: Individual and aggregate utilization

SouthJamaica — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 13:09:30 GMT

@NYC_Fella wrote:
I know there have been volumes written on this subject, but I am still a tiny bit confused.

For aggregate utilization, is there a threshold below 5% that matters? Is 2% better than 4%, for example?

Also, for an individual single card (the O in AZEO), what is the lowest optimum utilization?

Thanks in advance!

In my experience, aggregate utilization doesn't have a lot of 'thresholds' but I think once it's down to 2 or 3 % that's as good as it gets, and in individual utilization I have never actually noticed any penalty for having an account that is 28% or lower.

Re: Individual and aggregate utilization

SoonerSoldier33 — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 14:27:32 GMT

@NYC_Fella wrote:
I know there have been volumes written on this subject, but I am still a tiny bit confused.

For aggregate utilization, is there a threshold below 5% that matters? Is 2% better than 4%, for example?

Also, for an individual single card (the O in AZEO), what is the lowest optimum utilization?

Thanks in advance!

The lowest aggregate threshold is believed to be 5%, but can vary by scorecard. Not everyone has the 5% threshold. Everyone has the 9% threshold. I've not seen mention of a threshold under 5%, meaning 2%-3% should be no different. It is possible to have 4.5% rounded up to 5% which would cause you to hit the 5% threshold if it indeed exists on your scorecard. For individual utilization thresholds, the lowest tried and true is 30%, but there are almost certainly some below that according to scorecard as well. The standard answer to both is simply...lower is better, but not all zero, of couse.

As for the one balance card, there's a lot of inaccurate info out there. You don't get points for a higher than 1% utilization on your AZEO card. As long as your reported balance is at least $1, you don't lose points. The problem comes in bc certain lenders (Discover is one) will sometimes 'forgive' a very small balance, and actually report 0 when you may not have wanted them to. Best practice IMHO is $10 on a major bankcard with a CL under $31K (this messes with the mortgage scores if the CL is higher). You can play around with a higher balance yourself to experiment, but $10 on 1 major bankcard with all others reporting $0 in the same cycle should max your revolving utilization metrics and AWB metrics for the maximum score available to your own credit profile.

Re: Individual and aggregate utilization

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 15:23:34 GMT

first part of July I had my overall UTI drop from 7.8% to to 4.8% and saw a +10pt gain on TU. Since July, my UTI has been reporting either $95 or $50 total (0.05% UTI) and I havent seen the dial move at all either direction. There is probably a sweet spot/magic number in there but Ive yet to find it.