800 club, mostly...

[Anonymous]

Nice job, man!  The feeling of going from average credit to outstanding credit in a matter of months is incredible!  You would get the best rates right now on a mortgage because they thow out the highest and lowest score and use the mid score. 

[Anonymous]

Bobski:

Thanks for this information below.   Just one last question:   Is your oldest account age and average account age about the same for EX and EQ too, like it is for TU in your notes below?

If this is true, I should be **bleep** close to 800 when my bk falls off in July 2017.............ha ha.

_______________________

- "There is no evidence of a serious delinquency (60 days past due or greater) or derogatory description on your credit report." (0 accounts 60 days or more past due on my reports)
- "You've limited the use of your available credit." (Ratio of your revolving balances to your credit limits: 4%)
- "You have an established credit history." (Your oldest account was opened
13 Years, 8 Months ago. Average age of your accounts: 7 years)
EQ:
- "You have no missed payments on your credit accounts."

[Anonymous]

I don't know how the average age compares, because EX doesn't give those little tips/summary that TU and EQ do, but I would imagine it's pretty similar, because they have virtually identical accounts on the report.

The oldest age is *significantly* different, though, because the one account that is different (only on EX, not on TU or EQ) is a 35 year old JCPenny account that's not even mine! It was actually opened 3 years before I was born! I tried to dispute it once as "not mine", but it came back "account verified as correct" and I almost fell off my chair! That was a long time ago, though, before I realized that it was probably doing more good than harm, so if they don't want to remove it, that's fine my me. It's closed ("transferred to another office"), so there's probably no risk of there every being any negative information associated with that trade line. By contrast, my TU and EQ report ages are only ~13 years (as you would expect for a 32 year old). That one account probably explains why my EX score is 27 points higher than my EQ.

I don't think this one account would upset the average age too much, though, since I have ~19 accounts on my file (so the 35 - 13 = 22 year difference only adds about 1 year to my average account age).

[itzateach]

I am hoping to follow in your footsteps as your scores sound similar to mine....I am at 609,624, and 635. I have one accidental late that I have tried to dispute to no avail about a year ago. That is the only derogatory other than a BK over 6 years ago and some of it starts to fall off in oct 2008. My biggest hold up is my utilization (100 percent). BUT, when I sell my home, everything will be down to zero except my auto loan. I expect to see roughly a 100 point jump with the combination of my cards being paid off, etc. Is that basically what you did?

[Anonymous]

I basically just paid down my CC debt (car has been paid off for a couple of years), GWed one recent 30 day late (actually my girlfriend's account that I co-signed for), and got removed as an AU from a relatively new and high utilization CC account (again, my girlfriend's).

When you say "disputed" do you literally mean you disputed it, or that you tried GW? If you haven't tried GW, I recommend it. I never had a house loan or payment, so if you have, and you successfully pay it off with no lates or other derogatories, you may actually end up with scores slightly higher than mine since you have a mortgage in your "credit mix" and I do not. Then again, there's this whole "binning" thing that the guys on the FICO scoring forum talk about all the time that may put you in a different "bin" than me (since you have a mortgage and I do not) and this make the scoring slightly different.

[Anonymous]

My most recent scores as of 7/15/08, are 795 TU, 806 EQ, 811 EX.  Actually, three months ago (Apr 08), all my scores were in the 800's.  What dropped my scores were the fact that I stopped using a couple of my cards.  YUP!  Well, not actually stopped using them, as soon as I charged something, I immediately paid the card on online or went to a Sear's store to pay off the Discover or Sear's MC.  No activity ever showed on my credit reports because I didn't give things time to appear on a report. 

This zeal to pay off my CC amounts actually hurt my scores.

No balance/no activity on an account reflects "irresponsible credit" management.  "...magine that!"  One card I had not used in over a year and when I did, My TU score jumped 25 points.

Reading the tips on how to manage good credit says that no activity will hurt a score; keeping a small balance will help a score and show "responsible use of credit."

[Anonymous]

That's great, BobSki.  I read the positive remarks about what is contributing to your high score, but any idea why the TU score on 7/15 is so much lower than the others?  I know different agencies use slightly different scoring techniques, but I thought the scores usually ran closer together than that...

[Anonymous]

I'd say the housing market still has a ways to unwind.

As far as FICO scores and interest rates, once you get beyond 760 or so, there's really no benefit to a higher score...other than pride in a job well-done, of course.

Long-term interest rates, you can track at my blog linked to below...there's a sidebar with ARM, 15 and 30-year adjustable rates, updated daily. Interest rates are going up...they spiked earlier this week. This actually tends to drive the price of housing down, by suppressing demand, and by reducing the amount of money borrowers have to spend on the house itself. If a bank determines someone is worthy of being loaned $300,000, and interest rates are high, more of that loan goes to pay interest and less to principal. Therefore, the principal has to be lower.

Also remember what interest rates are: the price of money. Conventional laws of supply and demand apply here, too: as the price of money goes up, demand goes down, which tends to exert a downwards pressure on price (interest rates). If 30-year rates hit 9% by the end of summer, a lot of buyers will decide to remain on the sidelines, and banks will have to cut interest rates to lure borrowers back in.

Of course, if the federal government would live within its means and not suck up so much available cash for borrowing, that would reduce interest rates. But that's a topic for another day...

[Anonymous]

Acct15, the major difference between my TU report and EX and EQ is that the 30-day late from Dec 2001 appears only on my TU report, and not my EX and EQ reports. It's my theory that this is responsible for the majority of the score difference (the difference between "no lates" and "1 late", even if that late is *really* old). I'll find out for sure in a few months when that late drops off my report. I also think that TU's algorithm scores my particular credit profile a bit lower than EQ's and EX's (i.e. the weightings given to different aspects of a credit profile is more favorable for my particular credit profile with EQ's and EX's scoring algorithm than TU's).

[Anonymous]

NWM (I'm a Rush fan by the way... nice), I agree that waiting a year or more probably won't be a horrible idea. Also, buying vs. renting is generally pretty out of whack in my area (Los Angeles - I can rent a 2 bedroom house for less than what it would cost to buy it, even assuming generally good performance in the housing market down the road).