topic Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts... in General Credit Topics

Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

JasonBourneOfCredit — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 19:25:43 GMT

Upcoming car loan...

Its important to squeeze every last point out that I can because when I checked my fico here a few months ago, it was 713. I NEED to get to 720.

Cards:

Orchard (now Cap1 I think)       300 limit, 0 bal    opened 11/1/10

Cap 1                                             500 limit, 0 bal   opened 10/1/10

Firestone store card                 2200 limit, 0 bal   opened 7/1/10

NEW Chase Freedom         3000 limit, 350 bal   opened 4/1/12

Summary of credit:

Accounts Listed Negative   0
   Collections Account    0
   Real Estate Debt    $0.00
   Installment Debt    $394.00
   Revolving Debt    $343.00
       % Revolving Credit Available    94.28%

1 payment left on car lease from 4 yrs ago. Never late. No missed payments. Orchard reports on the last day of the month. Do I put a small balance on there or on the Cap 1? Leave it at $0? What to do??

Re: Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

RobertEG — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 19:41:44 GMT

I would speculate that you have currently tweaked about as much out of revolving util as possible.

I know that some anecdotal experiences posted have indicated that carrying a few % on a card gives slightly better results than 0% on and individ card.

Even if so, with 3 of 4 cards now at 0%, you now have only 25% cards with balance. Letting one more report a balance would double that number to 50%, hurting your % with balance.

The overall result would depend upon how high FICO scores % with balance as opposed to individ card % utils. The exact weightings are not known, but there would be some offset. I doubt that the resulting score difference would be much.

With both a good payment history and use of revolving credit, I would suspect that most points to be garnered now reside in your lenght of credit history growth.

No way to tweak that on a short-term basis.

Re: Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

Roarmeister — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 20:01:10 GMT

If you have 2 or 3 months before getting a loan, you can do a couple of things. Try to get some CLIs via soft pulls only. Pay off Chase Freedom in total. Don't add to any of the other cards. Keep paying off the monthly bills.

If you have 1 month before getting your loan, there is likely nothing you can do in the very short term. It depends on the reporting date of your cards and the timing of when your loaner pulls your credit score.

I am going to presume this is for a car loan as your lease is down to one payment. Depending on the mileage and condition of the vehicle and your contract, you could be hit with some closing costs on the lease. You may be able to roll the last payment(s) into your new vehicle loan. I was able to do this with my dealer as they were motivated to get the last of their clearance vehicles sold so they paid the last 2 months of my lease.

Re: Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 20:06:10 GMT

Getting Chase a little lower (before it reports) might help.

Another thing to consider, your Auto-enhanced FICO may be a lot higher.

Re: Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

JasonBourneOfCredit — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 22:21:50 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Getting Chase a little lower (before it reports) might help.

Another thing to consider, your Auto-enhanced FICO may be a lot higher.

Thanks for the replies to far.

Yeah I plan to take the Chase Freedom down to about $150 or less.

I think maybe its best to not put a balance on any of the other cards. My total credit history is 3.9 yrs old with my average age being right about 2 years. Nothing I can do here but let time do its thing.

Re: Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

llecs — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:05:08 GMT

I'll also add, if not added, that the Chase is draining your score because it's new. I bet by later this fall, you'll see a rebound/addition in points, and maybe a small bump next spring as it hits a year. Ditto to the balance on that too.

Re: Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

JasonBourneOfCredit — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 02:13:52 GMT

@llecs wrote:
I'll also add, if not added, that the Chase is draining your score because it's new. I bet by later this fall, you'll see a rebound/addition in points, and maybe a small bump next spring as it hits a year. Ditto to the balance on that too.

Ok wait, I thought leaving a balance on 1 card would be best. Would it help to have no balances on any cards? I got to know for sure on the next 4 days to let it post to my credit.

Re: Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

Dishpro — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 02:59:25 GMT

The first thing I would do is to check your scores. It's been a few months you said and it may very well already be at 720. Know what your working with and then you can find out what you need to get there.

Re: Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

JasonBourneOfCredit — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 07:05:31 GMT

@Dishpro wrote:
The first thing I would do is to check your scores. It's been a few months you said and it may very well already be at 720. Know what your working with and then you can find out what you need to get there.

I'll check them on the 7th after Chase updates.

Here's the $60M question! Right now Chase is at 12.4% reporting. I can pay it to 8-9% right now. Being that its the only card reporting, would you guess that'll be enough to trigger a small point gain?

edit: well, I just payed it down to 8%, hoping for perfect optimization. Since this is an experiement, I will post the results on the 7th for everybodys benefit.

Re: Almost time for a loan, how to POLISH credit to squeeze couple more pts...

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:06:52 GMT

Did you get your results yet?