topic Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage in Understanding FICO® Scoring

How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Anonymous — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:27:12 GMT

Trying to get approved for FHA mortgage. In just less than two weeks, our Experian score dropped over 40 pts.

I had a charge off deleted, collection accounts deleted, and disputes removed.

TU went UP over +40 pts.

Equifax dropped -20.

This means that TU is our new high -- and both EQ and EX are LOWS so our new middle is low!!!

It's like my worst nightmare here.

What can I do to bring Equifax and Experian up? Even just a little? They aren't budging.

Equifax: BEACON 5.0 - 638

Experian: FICO II 664

TU: CLASSIC 04 613

Now:

BEACON 5.0 - 617 (EQ)

FICO II 620 (EX)

CLASSIC 04 652 (TU)

I am trying to get a couple things corrected through Rapid Rescore but it takes like a week or so.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

CH-7-Mission-Accomplished — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:42:56 GMT

Unless you have a lot of utilization you can pay down, you are not likely to get back 40 points right away. It was the updating of those negatives that caused it to plunge. This is why people should not do anything in terms of disputes, updates, within six months of apping for a mortgage (said to help others, not make you feel bad!).

Honestly, I think you are probably stuck for six months unless you can get goodwill deletions.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Revelate — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 19:48:51 GMT

EX 98 can be influenced by installment loan utilization.

I paid down my baby loans as part of the mortgage process and gained a non-trivial amount of points on EX when we're talking playing in the middle tiers. Beyond that, revolving utilization or more negatives deleted are the best bet; actually I'd focus on those two first as installment utilization does not affect the FICO 04 algorithms used in a mortgage.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Installment-tradeline-utilization-thread/m-p/4055989#U4055989

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 14:02:11 GMT

okay thanks, those are good tips! In an ideal world, yes it's better to do it all before and not backwards.

I have one CA that's been paid twice (a medical bill) and they sent letters they are deleting it. Hopefully, that will make a difference.

My improved UTI reporting at the end of the month -- thanku MyFico boards!!! --- should help (I HOPE).

I just found out we have a bit more time -- another extra month so hopefully that will help as well. (Not before UW but before closing).

It's nerve wracking.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 14:26:50 GMT

I also think we need more CCs.

We only have 2: Credit1 ($450 limit) and First Premiere ($750). Those I paid to 0 until I learned about UTI here -- MyFico!!

FP offerred another card and a CL increase but I'm too afraid of an HP.

I can't risk it at this point, right before UW so instead I focused on maximizing UTI.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

redbeard — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 14:38:18 GMT

Do NOT get another credit card until your mortgage is done.

Adding another account will hurt your score, not help it, at least in the short term. More credit cards will NOT help your score, unless utilization is a problem that is dragging your score down. The extra pull, the damage to AAoA and the fact the credit line won't report for probably 30 days all mean it will have a negative impact, not a positive one.

Will the removal of a collection account help? Maybe. Is it the only one? If there are others, it might help, but not by much.

What else is on the report? You really didn't give enough information to get real advice. Personally, I'd ask the mortgage lender. He should have someone who can help with this, including the rapid rescore company. They usually have this stuff dialed in. Its not free, but it is very effective.

Dan

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

CH-7-Mission-Accomplished — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 16:08:53 GMT

This is risky, but if it were me and I was 40 ~~pounds~~ points shy (I'm not 40 pounds shy!), I would get one more credit card to make it three. I would get a store card to help with mix and I would get it using the shopping cart trick (never thought I would say this). You won't get an HP, you will have three revolving cards and you will have a store card for mix.

You might get 10 points out of the deal, but then again you might lose. Only one way to find out, but you know you are not going to get that loan if you need 40 points so it seems less risky than it might be for others.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 15:53:36 GMT

Just what I was thinking! (Re: SCT)

Right now we are in UW, we are 620 MIDDLE so we *barely* made it. If it doesn't work out -- then I'm going to try a couple techniques and see.

Right now -- I have only 1 Collection on the credit report. (It's mine and got stuck on my husband's, a $39.00 medical bill! I've paid it twice and they promised to delete and sent me a letter stating would delete -- still on there. It's recent though, within the past 12 months so I'm hoping once the end of the month updates and it's deleted -- that will give us a boost).

Some old debt that was either settled and paid, paid in full, or charge-off (1 or 2) from 6-7 years ago. I'm working on deletes.

Student loans -- that's another story. We are current on these.

There are a couple lates. I'm working on getting those corrected. They are from 2 years ago. One of them is in error (a Credit Union account we paid off but they showed us as late that month. I've complained and filed with CFPB and they sent me to some other agency. And one is a Cap1 that charged us fees for 2 years on a card I never used and I didn't stay on top of it. Cap1 said they would remove them then changed their mind so I might have to live with those -- but they're 2+ years old).

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Revelate — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 16:22:40 GMT

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

Take that idea of SCT and kick it to the damned curb: it does not help mix of credit, it will not help you in the short-term other than utilization, and it may actually damage your credit and create further complications of getting your mortgage underwritten.

If you open up an account in the middle of UW you are going to get slapped by your lender, just say no.

The time to do that sort of thing was six months ago, not in UW: you have 2 credit cards, and a couple of student loans, you are NOT a thin file from a lending perspective, so take what you have and go.

Google HIPAA process on that medical collection too.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:25:05 GMT

okay thanks!

I agree. I meant that only as a last ditch desperate effort if somehow we are turned down.

But I agree.

I am not even sending GW or anything because I don't want to open any disputes.

I will google that HIPAA.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

CreditDunce — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 00:24:08 GMT

GW letters shouldn't open a dispute. You are requesting the lender voluntarily remove the TL from your credit report. You are not disputing anything with the CRA's. I would keep sending the GW letters!

This is a dumb question, but just to make sure you are leaving a couple dollar balance to report on one card right? They are both not reporting $0 balance. I am fairly sure you aren't but if both report a zero balance, it will hurt your credit score.

One other thing you might want to consider is if your SO has any good credit cards they could add you to as an AU. Most CCC's will report the AU account with the full account history (Amex is an exception to this rule), It is a way to add an aged account to your CRA. However, it normally takes a few months before the AU account is reported. You will also want to check with your mortgage lender to verify they allow AU accounts.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 17:19:24 GMT

Thanks! I learned here about UTI -- so I fixed that!

Well Experian didn't go up but Equifax did!!! Finally. Woohoo.

Wow, that took tons of work and thanks to MyFico's help!!!

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 20:54:39 GMT

Revelate, I am in escrow (haven't gotten to UW yet). EXP is my middle score and it's 593. My high is TU at 622. We are going with a sub prime lender and doing a VA loan and it's being manually underwritten. But I would feel so much better with a mid score of 620 because that loan would be able to be re-sold and the lender would be more likely to do a final approval. Because we had already paid down our revolving debt to <10%, my LO noticed that my student loans (installment loans) were split into 4 loans. There were 2 of those 4 tradelines that had small(er) balances. He asked if I could pay down the smaller installment loans to at least <30% and we will proceed but if we needed to, he could pull a credit report early next month after those post and see if they will boost my score.

Everyone else always gives the same advice about paying debt - installment loans don't impact that much. But what you noted gives me hope. How many points did you get with Experian paying down your installment loan? Since that's our middle score now I'm hoping for the best lol.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 21:17:04 GMT

bmhill, for what it's worth, we switched LO to a much much better lender and she said she wants to avoid manual underwriting.

That thing that helped the most was getting the collection accounts deleted. Our student loans are still high.

Can you believe that Capital One sticking a stupid $59.00 annual fee on a card that hadn't been used in 3 years dropped our score over 30 points! They credited it back, it went back to 0 and boom! Score went up! That was what I learned here about UTI. The way the bureaus interpreted that was like 100% balance increase -- not good. Even though only $59.00 it had to go back to 0 and that was 100% balance decrease!

It's crazy but true.

Re: How to bump up Experian for Mortgage

Revelate — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 00:29:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Revelate, I am in escrow (haven't gotten to UW yet). EXP is my middle score and it's 593. My high is TU at 622. We are going with a sub prime lender and doing a VA loan and it's being manually underwritten. But I would feel so much better with a mid score of 620 because that loan would be able to be re-sold and the lender would be more likely to do a final approval. Because we had already paid down our revolving debt to <10%, my LO noticed that my student loans (installment loans) were split into 4 loans. There were 2 of those 4 tradelines that had small(er) balances. He asked if I could pay down the smaller installment loans to at least <30% and we will proceed but if we needed to, he could pull a credit report early next month after those post and see if they will boost my score.

Everyone else always gives the same advice about paying debt - installment loans don't impact that much. But what you noted gives me hope. How many points did you get with Experian paying down your installment loan? Since that's our middle score now I'm hoping for the best lol.

I *think* it's aggregate and as such if your aggregate installment utilization is high you may not get anything. We haven't gotten datapoints to isolate singular tradeline utilization out of several.

I got on the order of 13 points; it's a little off because I took an inquiry after my initial mortgage pulls came out of grace period, but basically I went 725 -> 728 -> 722 -> 732.

It's not earth shattering, are you certain there's no further tweaks on revolving utilization or in maybe getting a negative whacked?