Balance history has no impact on FICO: the revolving utilization calculation portion of the algorithm has no memory, at all.
What's in July? If it's a credit card application you don't have to "correct" anything right now (making the payments on time is the major part) and can simply cut the payments early in May/June and be as tweaked as possible for July regardless of lender.
If you're talking mortgage in July, and have a lender that's going to be looking at bank statements, I'd make the adjustment right now to paying before the statement date, and leaving the small ~2-9% balance on fewer than half your cards; you have some time to figure out what's optimal for you but that's the general consensus advice which works well. The more consistency the better in the mortgage process, and personally I'll not be deviating at all in the six month run up to my own mortgage process.
Revelate- is that true about no memory of revolving accountutilization? I was told when my report was pulled for an auto loan that my high balances were listed and they could see I had a habit of high utilization, which hurt me.
.. My cards had zero balance at the time, in case I didn't make that clear.
@loviedovie wrote:
Revelate- is that true about no memory of revolving accountutilization? I was told when my report was pulled for an auto loan that my high balances were listed and they could see I had a habit of high utilization, which hurt me.
The person that told you that doesn't understand what the high balance number means. That makes no sense. You could have had a high charge post 10 years ago and never used the card since, and that high balance number would stay the same. It's not at all an indicator that you habitually have high utilization.
Starting Score: ~500 (12/01/2008)
To add onto this:
Equifax does show your past statement balances as well as payments going backwards in time. For example, my CapOne card cut a $2,400 balance the first month, and I paid it all off. But the last payment of that month was for $25, and that is the payment Equifax reports. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Think about all the consumers in the US who have no idea about paying before a statement generates and things like that. They still get mortgages, credit cards, etc. as long as you are using the card appropriately (making on time payments) and it is paid off before applying for a mortgage (that's where you pay before statement) and you show liquidity in your bank statements even after paying all your debt off, no lender should refuse a loan because you have used a credit card too much. That is not the case if you apply for a mortgage when you have $25,000 in CC debt (I've seen it). But remember, there's a difference between debt and usage.
@SnackTrader wrote:To add onto this:
Equifax does show your past statement balances as well as payments going backwards in time. For example, my CapOne card cut a $2,400 balance the first month, and I paid it all off. But the last payment of that month was for $25, and that is the payment Equifax reports. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Think about all the consumers in the US who have no idea about paying before a statement generates and things like that. They still get mortgages, credit cards, etc. as long as you are using the card appropriately (making on time payments) and it is paid off before applying for a mortgage (that's where you pay before statement) and you show liquidity in your bank statements even after paying all your debt off, no lender should refuse a loan because you have used a credit card too much. That is not the case if you apply for a mortgage when you have $25,000 in CC debt (I've seen it). But remember, there's a difference between debt and usage.
EQ has added that to their reports as well? I noted that EX had back in March or thereabouts and I made the liberal assumption that all were receiving the data, but I hadn't realized it was now being made public on the sanitized versions of the data we and ostensibly the lenders see as well from Equifax. Good to know, thanks!