topic Re: How realistic am I being?? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 16:44:49 GMT

Here's my situation... I have 35 days to get my score as high as possible to qualify for a better mortgage program than the one I'm currently pre-approved for.

1. I have paid down all CCs to $0, EXCEPT one, which I am going to let post with a $50 balance (out of $5000 CL) basically reducing my utilization from 33% to 1%----- waiting for all of this to hit the bureaus now is like watching paint dry!! tick, tick, tick

2. I have one CC that will hit the one year mark in exactly 13 days!!! Perfect credit history on this account for a year, very low (and now no) balance. - not sure if TL aging helps with points at all at specific marks before 2 yrs??

3. I have one Inquiry that will fall outside of the 1 year range this month (yay, every point counts!!)

4. I have four inquiries that will hit the six/seven month mark this month - again, not sure if inquiry dings are reduced with aging over the year?

5. I cannot start ANY new cycles of further disputes, GWs, etc.... and all old (yet still reporting) baddies (and there are a few) are all paid to $0 (and have been for years) - so what's there will stay there.

I'm at a TU693, and an EX683 ...... trying desperately to eek out those 17 points and hit 700

Realistically, do I have ANY SHOT AT ALL?

Re: How realistic am I being??

Revelate — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 17:33:53 GMT

Hard to say even if we knew what was on the positive side of your report: how big was the revolving utilization you've paid down?

Also and here's the bugaboo, when we're talking mortgage refinancing even, the scores here probably aren't reference. I would still check my Beacon 5.0 from Equifax directly (Scorepower), or if you happen to have a DCU membership or a PSECU one for EX Risk Model 2, and that's likely the best estimates you can get for mortgage qualification right now if you're trying to hit a specific number.

TBH in my case, when I get to the point of thinking I might be ready for a mortage within a year, I'm just going to go and put a stupid mortgage app in fully expecting it to fail, just so I can get my tri-merge scores. It's a severely unfortunate state of affairs in my opinion but it's what we have.

My recommendation to you would be to wait for the time you've outlined, take a swing, and see what you get. If it doesn't work, try like hell to get the further negatives removed, and if that doesn't work, wait if you absolutely need the 700.

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 17:53:10 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
Hard to say even if we knew what was on the positive side of your report: how big was the revolving utilization you've paid down?

Also and here's the bugaboo, when we're talking mortgage refinancing even, the scores here probably aren't reference. I would still check my Beacon 5.0 from Equifax directly (Scorepower), or if you happen to have a DCU membership or a PSECU one for EX Risk Model 2, and that's likely the best estimates you can get for mortgage qualification right now if you're trying to hit a specific number.

TBH in my case, when I get to the point of thinking I might be ready for a mortage within a year, I'm just going to go and put a stupid mortgage app in fully expecting it to fail, just so I can get my tri-merge scores. It's a severely unfortunate state of affairs in my opinion but it's what we have.

My recommendation to you would be to wait for the time you've outlined, take a swing, and see what you get. If it doesn't work, try like hell to get the further negatives removed, and if that doesn't work, wait if you absolutely need the 700.

So here's exactly where I am...

1. The scores I have are MORTGAGE scores. My mid-score is a 683. Just had my broker pull the report (and got lucky that it didn't ding ANY of my scores!!). So i KNOW what they're seeing... on all three. TU693, EX683, EQ640. So I am 17 points away.

2. I have four active CCs..... three of mine, one AU. The three of mine are at $0 and will be reporting shortly (post the morgage pull). The fourth (AU) is my sister's and I am paying hers down to 9% less... will leave $50-$100 on it if I need to. Total CL =$10,000; $5,000 paid at $0, and her CL is $5000, which as of today she has a $2100 balance on (around 33% utilization). Total utilization is just barely under 30% will be reporting down to 3-9% over the next 30 days.

I'm just curious if I'm out of my mind thinking I can get 17pts out of paying all but one CC to $0, with one left at $50-100 (way less than 9%).....

and whether the inquiries aging, the one TL aging to a year, and multiple other inquiries aging over 6 months all hitting this month + the reduction in utilization could help me scrape by?

If not, it's not the end of the world... would just make things MUCH easier!!!! If I can hit 700 mid-score (the 17 points), I can get into a 10% down program with NO RESERVES!!!!! Meaning all the $$ that I would've been using for reserves can be put down on the home, and left in savings So it would be a HUGE benefit!!

Re: How realistic am I being??

Revelate — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 18:25:51 GMT

Hate to be a negative nancy, but I can't get my scores to move that much from 30% aggregate utillization; you *might* get it if you had balances reported on all your cards but that might be a stretch too. Then again my report is awkward for a number of reasons and yours might be different if it's not as ugly (higher scoring potential from whatever bucket you're in).

TBH I still wouldn't change my advice: get your profile as clean as possible as you're doing, wait for the anniversaries to pass, and take the swing. May not make it but I'm not Svengali trying to estimate this; regardless, props to you for actually having the mortgage scores already, and your plan is nearly exactly what I would've done though I would've tried to get the AU to zero and left a balance on one of my own cards... but under FICO 04/98 shouldn't matter in the slightest.

Re: How realistic am I being??

Ellifino — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 19:17:48 GMT

Just my experience from watching my fico monitoring fluctuations, I have seen 20-30 point swings just from changes in utilization. So there's no harm in hoping.

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 20:12:49 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
Hate to be a negative nancy, but I can't get my scores to move that much from 30% aggregate utillization; you *might* get it if you had balances reported on all your cards but that might be a stretch too. Then again my report is awkward for a number of reasons and yours might be different if it's not as ugly (higher scoring potential from whatever bucket you're in).

TBH I still wouldn't change my advice: get your profile as clean as possible as you're doing, wait for the anniversaries to pass, and take the swing. May not make it but I'm not Svengali trying to estimate this; regardless, props to you for actually having the mortgage scores already, and your plan is nearly exactly what I would've done though I would've tried to get the AU to zero and left a balance on one of my own cards... but under FICO 04/98 shouldn't matter in the slightest.

Thanks for the input... and for the validation that I'm making the right choices Revelate!!

It's been a long road in the last 10 months... when I paid my jeep off in December of last year it hit my credit report hard! It was only one of two reporting TLs, so I took a HUGE hit in the way of a 45 pt loss..... that put me into the 500s to start with!!! So, it I can swing these 17 points, it will be nothing short of miraculous to me!

Either way, I REALLY appreciate all of the information, advice, and support given on here for the last year I've learned more about my credit, and what's important, than I ever expected to in my life

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 00:59:08 GMT

well, first of 3 cards that I paid down to $0 this month hit my CR today... a whole whopping 4 pts

After these three report then comes the "big one" ......dropping one of the 4 cards from the 30's% utilized down to 1%..... ohhhh please let me have a chance!! lol

Guess it's better being 4 up vs. 4 down 4 down... 13 more to go

Re: How realistic am I being??

CreditDunce — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 02:39:53 GMT

Good luck. Reducing the util down from 30% is bound to be a big help.

Re: How realistic am I being??

fishbjc — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 14:34:57 GMT

I paid one card down by $50 and gained 13 points. You just never know. I've been keeping track of each payment and playing around a bit.

I bet you'll get there!!!! Keep us posted, will ya!

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 16:24:14 GMT

@fishbjc wrote:
I paid one card down by $50 and gained 13 points. You just never know. I've been keeping track of each payment and playing around a bit.

I bet you'll get there!!!! Keep us posted, will ya!

If I can pull this off, I officially wll have arrived at the 700 mark! fingers crossed.... and will definitely let you all know how it turns out!!

Re: How realistic am I being??

thom02099 — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 16:48:37 GMT

Just an observation, based solely on anecdotal reports here and at other forums...

Score swings, primarily upward, seem to be more pronounced for folks in the upper 600-low 700 range, than for folks in the upper 700-800 range. You have more "wiggle room" to gain those increases by doing what you've proposed doing to improve your score, and the rewards are greater. So, optimistically, I think your odds of getting that 17 (now 13) point bounce are pretty good, relatively speaking.

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 17:40:54 GMT

@thom02099 wrote:
Just an observation, based solely on anecdotal reports here and at other forums...

Score swings, primarily upward, seem to be more pronounced for folks in the upper 600-low 700 range, than for folks in the upper 700-800 range. You have more "wiggle room" to gain those increases by doing what you've proposed doing to improve your score, and the rewards are greater. So, optimistically, I think your odds of getting that 17 (now 13) point bounce are pretty good, relatively speaking.

Thanks! You guys give me hope! .... and that's all I need right now

Re: How realistic am I being??

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:49:44 GMT

I agree with Revelate. It's hard to say without seeing the rest of your report. If you were at 80% utilization with those scores and then paying to 50$ reporting than I would definitely say your scores could hit 700. What was your utilization before paying everything down?

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:56:35 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I agree with Revelate. It's hard to say without seeing the rest of your report. If you were at 80% utilization with those scores and then paying to 50$ reporting than I would definitely say your scores could hit 700. What was your utilization before paying everything down?

I was at almost 40% total utilization. Two cards at about 10%, one card at about 30% and the third at a little over 40%.

I got another bump today on EX (3 pts) and TU (5 pts) for paying down one of the two that were at 10% to $0. Waiting for the last three to hit and post.

Re: How realistic am I being??

Ellifino — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 05:08:32 GMT

Any updates on this, OP?

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 12:25:10 GMT

@Ellifino wrote:
Any updates on this, OP?

I WISH!! I am patiently waiting for bureaus to update....so it can reflect in my FICO scores. There seems to be a delay in bureau reporting this month, across the board.... everything from my mortgage to my credit cards....about a week later than normal. (the watched pot isn't boiling )

I'll keep you guys posted as things hit ..... I've got until Nov. 14th to pull this off..... so I still have a couple weeks

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 12:49:51 GMT

Update: As of this morning all but one CC has been paid down to $0. There's approximately 30% of the CL utilized on the last CC (it's a card I'm an AU on).....which I was planning on paying down to less than 9% here in a week or so (before it hits the bureaus)

So, I'm not sure WHAT is going on, but when all three credit cards show $0 (except the AU), my score DROPPED.... 16 points.... on my Experian FICO score!!!!! AHHHHHHH....that's the WRONG DIRECTION!!!!

I am not sure if the FICO version of Experian uses on this site is AU sensative, or counts the AU account into the score, but OMG, this is HORRIBLE!!!!!

May have my mortgage broker pull just EX today to see how it shows for her.

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 19:15:58 GMT

Well folks, the verdict is in.... and I did NOT make up the points needed to hit 700 on my EX report

I came in at a 704 on TU, and a 691 on EX. Boohoo!!! It was worth the shot.... and for what it's worth.... I FINALLY broke ONE score into the 700's!!!!!

Re: How realistic am I being??

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 01:08:12 GMT

@Barneygirl wrote:
Well folks, the verdict is in.... and I did NOT make up the points needed to hit 700 on my EX report

I came in at a 704 on TU, and a 691 on EX. Boohoo!!! It was worth the shot.... and for what it's worth.... I FINALLY broke ONE score into the 700's!!!!!

I'm sorry! I actually think paying that card down to 0 actually caused you the hit.. it seem ANY of your cards reporting 0 will cause this to happen, when I tried to get all my cards to 0 and let one report a very low balance I got hit big time

Re: How realistic am I being??

Barneygirl — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 02:12:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Barneygirl wrote:
Well folks, the verdict is in.... and I did NOT make up the points needed to hit 700 on my EX report

I came in at a 704 on TU, and a 691 on EX. Boohoo!!! It was worth the shot.... and for what it's worth.... I FINALLY broke ONE score into the 700's!!!!!

I'm sorry! I actually think paying that card down to 0 actually caused you the hit.. it seem ANY of your cards reporting 0 will cause this to happen, when I tried to get all my cards to 0 and let one report a very low balance I got hit big time

Thanks! It got me 11 points on my TU report, but only 8 points on EX. (I was at 683 and it increased to 691)

Oddly enough, I got hammered with extra reserve requirements due to the this one being a second home, and I didn't have enough $$ to go the route that I was shooting for the 700 for.... so it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things AND... I HIT a 704 on TU.... first time in the 700s in years