Hi guys,
about to do some major apping (if you've follwed my other recent posts) but I'm trying to understand exactly how much credit bandwidth I have. My myFICO score as of 10/13 is EQ 761. My most recent freec***&&*&dotcom EQ is 739.
All good scores that I'm pleased with, but I'm interested in knowing which might be closer to what Amex and Citi would use? I trust myFICO much more but wonder if banks who pull from EX exclusively my use a score more closely similar to another boards score as well?
Simple reason is that if I app for more than one card, I'd like to be able to predict how my "after app" scores might look like? The difference in in 22 points could be meaningful. One thing that I did come to believe by using another sites score simulator is that once you've passed 8, inquiries seem not to hurt you as badly (pints reductions). I'm sure that if I were applying for a mortgage and someone did a manual review that a high number of inquiries would be less acceptable.
@CreditEd wrote:Hi guys,
about to do some major apping (if you've follwed my other recent posts) but I'm trying to understand exactly how much credit bandwidth I have. My myFICO score as of 10/13 is EQ 761. My most recent freec***&&*&dotcom EQ is 739.
All good scores that I'm pleased with, but I'm interested in knowing which might be closer to what Amex and Citi would use? I trust myFICO much more but wonder if banks who pull from EX exclusively my use a score more closely similar to another boards score as well?
Simple reason is that if I app for more than one card, I'd like to be able to predict how my "after app" scores might look like? The difference in in 22 points could be meaningful. One thing that I did come to believe by using another sites score simulator is that once you've passed 8, inquiries seem not to hurt you as badly (pints reductions). I'm sure that if I were applying for a mortgage and someone did a manual review that a high number of inquiries would be less acceptable.
There's diminishing returns for everything when it comes to FICO (possible exception of aggregate CL and AAoA since they are flat metrics, unless they factor into bucketing somehow); inquiries are no exception to this, the more you have, the less it hurts you; however, mortgage (the same applies to auto) inquiries are counted as a single inquiry from a score calculation perspective if they were obtained within a certain time period: 30 days for FICO '04, 45 I believe for FICO '08, and on the odd chance you get stuck with FICO '98 think it's either 14 or 15. Also inquiries aren't caclulated linearly anyway, i.e. the 1st hurts, the second may not, the 3rd will, 4/5 may not, etc... this is an example and not precise.
Anyway if the reports are line item identical between EX (which FCR pulls) and EQ from here, the myFICO EQ version is explicitly FICO '04, the exact same you will find on a mortgage application. The FCR is a FAKO which isn't used by anyone; however, a non-trivial number of lenders are using the bankcard enhanced version, or the FICO '08 model.
End of the day you can't find your actual EX FICO scores anywhere (edit: except from a lender, thanks Elcid), but frankly if you can hit the gold-plated number of 761 on EQ, unless you have an awkward collection or other negative that only reported to EX, you're likely to be fine anywhere assuming sufficient age on your tradelines. Some can reach artificially high scores with having recently established credit, and that isn't the same as the 760+ someone with 10 years of history has. Approvals are more than FICO score, that's just one underwriting hurdle but I digress.
As for how much you drop, that is extremely YMMV; understanding FICO score might be a more appropriate board for that.
@Elcid89 wrote:"End of the day you can't find your actual EX FICO scores anywhere"
There is a way, but it involves taking a yearly inquiry hit. I just call up the mortgage / loan officer at NFCU and have him pull a trimerge once per year. It costs me $11 for all three and I get hard FICO scores from all three bureaus.
Yeah good point 
. Should've had "except from a lender in there."
Thanks.
Thanks to all (especially @Revelate). What I LOVE about this board is that the more I learn and understand the more community members I run in to help me learn and understand more...
Along with increasing my overall lines I also need to work on diversifying my creditors and where they pull from to help in keeping the inquiries distributed.