800 club

[Anonymous]

I have 22 years of credit history, no late, cc 5 card limit all together $85,000  , ballance $2000  , have 15 mortgages paid off, 7 cars paid off 3 existing mortgages now,  still can't get it higher then 750, 765, 775.  it makes me crazy

[fused]

Some possible reasons:

- do you have a lot of inqs

- check the average-age of your accounts

- three open mortgages

[haulingthescoreup]

And I would add: does this $2000 balance reflect what is reported on your credit reports, or what you are carrying over from month to month?

Many people have a high balance that reports on their statement. Even though they pay it off promptly, and never pay a penny of interest, that balance is reported to the CRA's (credit reporting agencies = credit bureaus), and their scores are hit for having high balances.

If that $2K is what is reported to the CRA's, then never mind, it's something else.

[Anonymous]

800 is pretty rare. Your score is just as good as anyone with an 800 as far as credit worthiness. I am in a similar boat. Also, nothing wrong with 3 mortgages if you have at least 2 homes :-) Mine I believe, and possibly yours too, is the number of inquiries. One tends to bring it down a bit, so it seems. I opened a credit card in attempts to boost it, it boosted, but not as much as I would like, but I reckon that when those inquiries fall of in a couple of years your score will go into the 800 club.

[Anonymous]

I would say that you are not above 800 is because you have (3) mortgages. When I paid off my (1) mortgage I LOST 21 points. (1) mortgage seems to be the preferred number.

$$$$

800 Club member

[MattH]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:
And I would add: does this $2000 balance reflect what is reported on your credit reports, or what you are carrying over from month to month?

Many people have a high balance that reports on their statement. Even though they pay it off promptly, and never pay a penny of interest, that balance is reported to the CRA's (credit reporting agencies = credit bureaus), and their scores are hit for having high balances.

If that $2K is what is reported to the CRA's, then never mind, it's something else.

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Yes, this is a longstanding annoyance, I think the system should distinguish between a balance that is carried over versus convenience users like me who don't pay interest on credit cards (I do pay interest on a mortgage, but that's 5.875% fixed and tax-deductible, whereas my Citicard has a purchase APR of 16.99% and my Chase Visa has a purchase APR of 6.99%). I could easily use my debit card for everything, I've always got enough in the bank for that, but I prefer using credit cards so I have more control over when the money leaves my bank account and also the benefit of some credit-card-specific legal protections. I do make a purchase with my debit card about once a week at a grocery or pharmacy to get cash back because that way I avoid paying an ATM fee (I am perhaps a little compulsive about making sure I pay the banks as little as possible).

With a total balance on my revolving accounts of $2410 the last time I pulled my FICO scores my EX was 821 and my EQ 801. In past months when the total balance on my revolving accounts was around $6K my EX was always about the same but my EQ was below 800 and under "factors affecting your score" it mentioned the total balance on my revolving accounts (when it's above 800 it says "no negative factors"). My TU is always very close to 790 and under "factors affecting your score" it mentions NUMBER of accounts showing a balance. I carry very little cash and pay in full every month, so I run quite a bit through several cards and the balances fluctuate, but all my cards report a balance every month, and the limits are high enough that we rarely hit 10% utilization on any card.

So, a little annoying. On the other hand, as various folks have pointed out, if I needed a quick score boost I could probably get one by prepaying all my cards for a while.