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Hubby and I are going to be buying a house in about 5 months. That's the goal anyway. HIs credit score is 719. I was told it is best to have it over 740 when applying for a mortgage. It seems his only "holdup" on his score is his length of credit history as he jas had a car loan for 3 years and a credit card for about 2.5 years. His credit card usage is 20%, and never a late or missed payment on either the card or the car. My score is 740, but he makes WAY WAY more money than me, so I want to get his up over the 740 mark. I have 3 additional CC's that he is not on. I added him to one this week that we paid to under 30% usage. We are going to be making payments today on the other 2 to get them under 30%. If I add him also to my longest card, a little over 13 years, that should help him get over the 5 year mark for credit length. (I believe it is an average of all your credit, correct me if that is wrong). Do you think that will be enough to help him get to the 740? Also, I should say, these are FAKO scores from credit karma. I know I should get the real scores, but I wanted to wait to pay for those until after we have the cards under 30% and him added to them so we have as much information as possible. Any thoughts?
Get his real scores. Credit check total is a $1 for all three, plus credit reports. Cancel within seven days. FAKO scores can vary as much as 50-100+/- points from an actual FICO score, and they aren't relevant at all for the majority of lending purposes.
@Adkins wrote:Get his real scores. Credit check total is a $1 for all three, plus credit reports. Cancel within seven days. FAKO scores can vary as much as 50-100+/- points from an actual FICO score, and they aren't relevant at all for the majority of lending purposes.
CCT might be great for getting inexpensive FICO 08 scores but the OP is going to be applying for a mortgage so they need to get their mortgage scores which can be significantly different than the regular 08 scores. The only place to get their FICO scores is thru FICO
Because he will be applying for a mortgage typically underwriting manually goes over credit reports and disregards any AU accounts since they don't see that as the person being financially responsible for the account(s) especially when trying to determine DTI. I would do as Adkins suggested and have him pull his mortgage scores from MyFico because it's quite possible he's already in range of getting the best rate.
Dont use Credit Karma scores, not valid. Pay to pull your score here at myfico or credit check total.
What WILL help to bring those scores up is to pay down the balance on the cards. Also, might not look good that you added him to your cards because they will show up on his reports as new accounts and lenders might not like that if you're trying to buy a house. Definately DO NOT apply for anything during the buying process.
@Anonymous wrote:
@Adkins wrote:Get his real scores. Credit check total is a $1 for all three, plus credit reports. Cancel within seven days. FAKO scores can vary as much as 50-100+/- points from an actual FICO score, and they aren't relevant at all for the majority of lending purposes.
CCT might be great for getting inexpensive FICO 08 scores but the OP is going to be applying for a mortgage so they need to get their mortgage scores which can be significantly different than the regular 08 scores. The only place to get their FICO scores is thru FICO
I'm aware of this, but the OP is only taking about FAKO scores currently and mentioned not wanting to pay for scores yet. At least the FICO 8 scores from credit check total would be a better idea of credit health, plus it's cheap at a $1.
I checked his on your suggestion and it is 733. Any new thoughts? That's better, but not over 740. I already added him to one of my cards, but that is not reflected yet. Not the 13 year old one, but a different one that was below 30%
Eventually, Mr. and Mrs. OP will want to pull their mortgage scores, but with five months to go and stuff still on the to-do list, it doesn't need to be today. Paying for myFICO to pull beats having a bank do it until it's actually time to get the application process going.
Note that "under 30%" actually means 28.9% or below. And if you're paying interest, you'll want to be enough under 28.9% so the next interest charge doesn't bump you above that.
If there's any chance that you can get yourselves down to a tiny balance on one of each of your cards (that's a major card without an AU), that would be ideal for FICO.