HELP!!!! Credit Score - Credit Limit/Credit Balance

[Anonymous]

I having troubles deciding whether to lower my credit limits on my credit cards or leaving them as they are now.I currently have a car loan that is 35k and planning to refinance it to 19k.  My credit limits are as follow:

1st card = 7k

2nd card = 12.5k

3rd card = 2.5k

4th card = 1k

5th card = 1k

6th card = 600

I always pay off my balance in full. My credit score has been sitting at 730 for over 6 months now.  I'm planning on purchasing a house within the next couple of months.  I do want to increase my credit score and increase my chance of being able to borrow as much as 350k.  I have done alot of researching online but not sure on what to do as of this point.  Please help if you can.

[BlessedHappiness]

You would not want to lower your credit limits.  That will adversley affect your score because it will lower the amount of credit you have available to the balances used.  Since you pay your balances in full each month, you may want to leave $10 reporting. This should boost your scores a bit.  Also, you want to check your report to make sure that they are reporting $0 balances each month, sometimes if the balance is reported before you pay it off, it will raise your % of credit used to your available credit.

Message Edited by BlessedHappiness on 03-20-2009 11:16 AM

Message Edited by BlessedHappiness on 03-20-2009 11:16 AM

[Anonymous]

credit balance of $10 or balance/limit = 10%?  Does my car loan play a role in my credit balance?

[llecs]

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justunum wrote:
Does my car loan play a role in my credit balance?

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Unless there's a temptation to max out your CCs, there's no positive reason to decrease your CLs as mentioned. Decreasing them will increase utilization which will drop your score if you choose to carry any balances.

Car notes don't factor into CC utilization.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
credit balance of $10 or balance/limit = 10%?  Does my car loan play a role in my credit balance?

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The previous poster said $10, but really as long as you have 1 CC report a balance of anything from 1 penny to less than 10% of that individual credit limit, you should get some kind of a boost.