Credit Score help Please

[Chell3719]

I have two credit cards that I have balances on them and three (one work card) that are paid off every month.  I am trying to pay off the two cards that have balances and would like to transfer the balance from one to the other and then just set up auto payments for the one card.  Then I have only one to think and worry about.  However, I am looking to do a refinance on my house this next month and was wondering if transfering balances affects my credit.  I have a good rating of 744 and want it over 750 to do the refinance.  Any thoughts.  Thanks 

[Booner72]

From what I have read repeatedly, the overall utility is weighed more heavily than individual.  Moving debt around probably won't do much good, if any.

[Anonymous]

In doing a balance Xfer it is possible for the balance to show on both cards on your credit report until both statements update with the transfer info. I know I did a Xfer from one card to NFCU and the NFCU statement cut with the new balance and there was a lag of about two weeks for the other card to report the reduced balance from the Xfer.

For that reason alone I would wait until you complete the refi, unless your reported CC utilization would not be greatly affected if both cards were to report. (e.g. Utilization is 5% with current situation and 8% if both report the balance.) Utilization does affect your credit score and it seems to run in tiers. Fico likes low overall utilization.

[Anonymous]

It's notoriously difficult to predict the FICO impact of a balance transfer.

What is your current balance and CL on each of the two cards?

If utilization is, say 35% on both cards, and the balance transfer brings one card's utilization up to 70%, It's likely that you' d see a FICO score decrease.

In your case with only 2 of 5 cards currently reporting a balance, I think it would be unlikely that you' see a FICO score increase going from 2 cards reporting a balance to 1.  But YMMV on both counts.

Also, if you're looking at getting that FICO up several points, it may be worth it to pull a myfico report and see what's listed on "What's Hurting Your FICO Score".  Addressing those issues, if you can, are the items that will most likely result in a FICO score increase.