Advice on How to Squeak out Another 3-4 points

[Barneygirl]

Good afternoon folks!!   I have a bit of a predicament that I could use some input on....

I am TRYING to get a home equity loan or line of credit, but I have two things going against me right now.

1.  My dad passed away last year and I was left paying for everything, and am currently running about 85% utilized on my credit cards

2.  I have a perfect 2+ year payment history, plus have gotten almost all of my old negatives cleared up (my most recent "baddie" is almost 5 years old).... with the exception of ONE 30 day late payment 11 months ago (I have been fighting and disputing this for almost a year now as it was the creditor's auto-pay glitch that caused MY late payment!)

I am sitting right now at TU614 mid-score.  Anyways, to even qualify for the loan I need to squeak out a mid-score of 620.... that will allow  me to cash out a little bit of my home's equity (I'm sitting on about $200,000 in equity) and pay off my credit cards and do some work around the house.

Because I am at such a high utilization % on my credit cards, my scores are tanked right now.  And because I have such high payments on the cc's I don't have much room to be paying down any accounts.

Two things are on my report that I'm curious about.

1.  At what point do 30 day lates start to lessen in impact?  Since I will likely be fighting this one forever, I'm "hoping" that since it'll hit a year this month it might have a little less impact.

2.  I have a very old judgement that still shows on EX, and is due to fall off within the next 3 months.

Hoping to be able to get my score up a little, to hit that 620 mid-score, soon.... and outside of trying to pay down my credit cards (which I already am, but it's veryyyyy slow) not sure what options I have.

Any input on the 30 day late impact,  an old judgement impact, or knows a lender who will do HELOC/loans at lower than a 620 mid-score please let me know!!

Thanks!~

[Anonymous]

Tough to tell the impact of a 30 day late when you still have negative info on your credit report.  There's a chance that it could get you 5-10 points back if you were to get it removed, though, so if I were you I'd be hammering that creditor with GW letters non-stop until you get the adjustment you are looking for.

The utilization is really what is holding you back, as you already know.  Overall going from 85% utilization down to 8% for example would probably mean somewhere in the realm of 100 points under FICO models.  I know that aggregate break points exist at 9%, 29%, 49%... perhaps 69% would be the next after that.  I'm sure others can chime in there.  Would paying your utilization down from 85% to 69% be feasible?  I'm not sure what your total credit limits are and/or how much CC debt we are talking that makes up that 85%, so perhaps you can provide a bit more info on that subject.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Barneygirl wrote:

Good afternoon folks!!   I have a bit of a predicament that I could use some input on....

Two things are on my report that I'm curious about.

1.  At what point do 30 day lates start to lessen in impact?  Since I will likely be fighting this one forever, I'm "hoping" that since it'll hit a year this month it might have a little less impact.

2.  I have a very old judgement that still shows on EX, and is due to fall off within the next 3 months.

Hoping to be able to get my score up a little, to hit that 620 mid-score, soon.... and outside of trying to pay down my credit cards (which I already am, but it's veryyyyy slow) not sure what options I have.

Any input on the 30 day late impact,  an old judgement impact, or knows a lender who will do HELOC/loans at lower than a 620 mid-score please let me know!!

Thanks!~

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Not sure you will see much benefit on the 30 day late until it ages 2 years. Also, I gather you have multiple 30 day lates. If so, one passing an age milestone probably won't matter if others are still under said aging milestone. All you can do is wait and see. Please let us know if you see a nice score bump at 1 year aging.

Mortgage scores - particularly Equifax are sensitive to # cards reporting balances. Not sure how many cards you have and what % are reporting balances. If 100% are reporting balances and one is a low limit card, pay it off. Also, get all your individual cards under 89% utilization. Then bring down aggregate to under 69% as funds permit.

Again, 1st step is to not have all open accounts reporting balances - then address "max out conditions" - over 89% utilization on individual accounts.

[Revelate]

My own data is seriously suspect but I was back pre-30D late levels about a year afterwards on TU FICO 8 and TU FICO 04 with a bunch of negatives from 2010.

That said, and I never really looked at or cared about TU so sort of left all this data on the floor and unfortunately had a couple of new accounts (HELOC and Citi to replace Sallie) so my reason codes are sorta all over the place.  Not a lot I can realistically say, some aging factors in there and a strange HELOC point too so take it all with a grain of salt.  

EQ FICO 5 and TU FICO 4 likely move less so on new deliquencies / derogatories, back in the day I got a tax lien tacked on for a span of six months after annoying an IRS collection agent with other serious derogs on there and my score moved all of 5 points there, vs. 50 points on FICO 8; however, I'd gotten non-trivial movement in recovery after even six months on FICO 8 so there's some confluence of data around both deliquencies and derogatories not sucking as much after a comparitively short period of time if you were already in a dirty bucket already.  

It's when you're clean and get something which kicks you out of the pretty scorecards where your score can be depressed for 7 years or longer.  My anecdotal data anyway.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Barneygirl wrote:

Good afternoon folks!!   I have a bit of a predicament that I could use some input on....

I am TRYING to get a home equity loan or line of credit, but I have two things going against me right now.

1.  My dad passed away last year and I was left paying for everything, and am currently running about 85% utilized on my credit cards

2.  I have a perfect 2+ year payment history, plus have gotten almost all of my old negatives cleared up (my most recent "baddie" is almost 5 years old).... with the exception of ONE 30 day late payment 11 months ago (I have been fighting and disputing this for almost a year now as it was the creditor's auto-pay glitch that caused MY late payment!)

I am sitting right now at TU614 mid-score.  Anyways, to even qualify for the loan I need to squeak out a mid-score of 620.... that will allow  me to cash out a little bit of my home's equity (I'm sitting on about $200,000 in equity) and pay off my credit cards and do some work around the house.

Because I am at such a high utilization % on my credit cards, my scores are tanked right now.  And because I have such high payments on the cc's I don't have much room to be paying down any accounts.

Two things are on my report that I'm curious about.

1.  At what point do 30 day lates start to lessen in impact?  Since I will likely be fighting this one forever, I'm "hoping" that since it'll hit a year this month it might have a little less impact.

2.  I have a very old judgement that still shows on EX, and is due to fall off within the next 3 months.

Hoping to be able to get my score up a little, to hit that 620 mid-score, soon.... and outside of trying to pay down my credit cards (which I already am, but it's veryyyyy slow) not sure what options I have.

Any input on the 30 day late impact,  an old judgement impact, or knows a lender who will do HELOC/loans at lower than a 620 mid-score please let me know!!

Thanks!~

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IMHO you've just got to focus on paying down what you've got.

Try the snowball method (pay smallest balance off first, then concentrate on next smallest balance).