Hello everyone,
I thought I would put some DP's on how I built my credit from no score to high 700's Fico 8 and low 800's Fico 9 in 6 month time frame.
I know everyone's file is different but in this case I believe if you are starting off with a clean blank file like I did you can achieve the same success using the methods I did. I did a lot of research and even more reading on these forums to learn what I have.
So I started with 0 inquiries on all reports and the first thing I did was to get a secured Cap 1 Platnum card with 300/ SL, a few days later I got a discover it secured with a 300/SL. So this now puts me at 1/TU 1/EQ 2/EX for inquiries (darn cap one and triple pulls). Next I got a secured Open Sky card 200/SL (no HP for this card). I now signed up for rentreporters and had 2 years of rental history added to my TU and EQ report (this only helps for Fico 9 and 10) This was all in February 2022. In March I signed up for NavyFCU and got a checking/savings account and a secured NRewards card 200/SL so now I'm at 1/TU 2/EQ and 2/EX for inquiries. A couple days later still in March I took a SSL for $3000 with Nfcu and immediately paid it down to 8%. April I had a relative put me on an Amex BCE as an AU and that was all for April. In May I had a 776 Fico 9 for TU and still 0 for Fico 8 but this allowed me to qualify for the Apple Card with a $3500/SL They did a soft pull to see if you would be approved and then a hard pull if accepted. A few days later still in May I decided to try for the GM Rewards card since it's also by Goldman Sachs the same bank as with Apple and also did the same soft pull to see if you qualify and I did for a 3000/SL. This now puts me at 3/TU 2/EQ 2/EX for inquiries. This is where I stopped and just kept all my cards report a 0 balance except for 1 and never over 5%. I used each card though and spent a decent amount on each. Fast forward 6 months later as of August 1st these are my Fico 8 scores and my Fico 9 are in the low 800's. I hope this helps and please ask any questions as everyone on here helped me and I hope I can also help others.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
/
Congrats on finally receiving your long awaited F8 scores! 🎉🎊🍾
For more clarity, for those who may read this and think it might be possible for themselves or someone they know....
On the rentreporters, how many months of payments as well as additional months were added to that account age, for the length of your lease? What is the maximum number of months that can be reported? What CRA's do they report to? How much did it cost you to get it reported? How much do you pay per month or year to keep the account reporting going forward? If you stop paying, will the account show as a closed account and remain on the report until deleted in the "up to 10 yrs" timeframe, or is the account just fully removed from the CRA reports?
On your Amex BCE that you have as an AU, what is the credit limit and original age of the card account? How "old" is that card showing on your CRA reports? Is it different per different FICO scores and/or Vantage scores?
What does your 8/1 MyFico 3B report show for AoOA, AAoA, AoYRA? (Separately for each of the 3 CRA's, since rentreporters doesn't report to all 3).
Thanks in advance for filling in more DP's! 😊
@Who_wuda_thought wrote:Congrats on finally receiving your long awaited F8 scores! 🎉🎊🍾
For more clarity, for those who may read this and think it might be possible for themselves or someone they know....
On the rentreporters, how many months of payments as well as additional months were added to that account age, for the length of your lease? What is the maximum number of months that can be reported? What CRA's do they report to? How much did it cost you to get it reported? How much do you pay per month or year to keep the account reporting going forward? If you stop paying, will the account show as a closed account and remain on the report until deleted in the "up to 10 yrs" timeframe, or is the account just fully removed from the CRA reports?
The max they go back is 24 months but the do show the actual age of the lease. So mine shows 4 years and 3 months but only shows the previous 24 months starting from February. The cost was $95/year and I believe a $45 start up fee. I don't really have an honest answer about if you stop paying how it would report or be deleted.
On your Amex BCE that you have as an AU, what is the credit limit and original age of the card account? How "old" is that card showing on your CRA reports? Is it different per different FICO scores and/or Vantage scores?
With Amex they don't backdate the account opening date so it shows open since 3/2022. The CL is 30k
What does your 8/1 MyFico 3B report show for AoOA, AAoA, AoYRA? (Separately for each of the 3 CRA's, since rentreporters doesn't report to all 3).
Rent reporters only reports to TU and EQ as of now but they say that they will soon be reporting to all 3 CRA. My aaoa is 5 months my Apia is 6 months and my aoya is 3 months.
Thanks in advance for filling in more DP's! 😊
Not a problem, I hope this helps.
@Iusedtolurk wrote:@RobynJ Congrats on a superb job of getting your credit scores to those levels in such a short amount of time and providing the DPs.
Thank you, the difficult part of the build just begun. I never thought it would be such a hard task to keep myself from applying for more credit. I have had a little fun with pre quals to ease the urge of actually applying. One thing I learned on here from a few of the other posters is that your profile suffers when you can't let your aaoa grow. That is what my goal is now to get a year minimum before I app anymore. For now I will just suffice with graduation of the Cap 1, Disco, and best of all the Navy NRewards. My navy already grew from $200 to $700 and should unsecure this coming month. The other 2 should also unsecure anytime now. Then I will play the CLI game for a bit. Once a my aaoa are at a year I will get one more card and cancel the only one that has a AF (Open Sky).
Yes... give the axe to OpenSky as soon as you can before the fee renews. BIG thing that I rant about on here. Congratulations on a job well done.
@805orbust wrote:Yes... give the axe to OpenSky as soon as you can before the fee renews. BIG thing that I rant about on here. Congratulations on a job well done.
Thank you, I am glad I didn't open any other cards that had an AF. The only reason I choose to open Open Sky was the fact that they don't do a HP at all. It allowed me to open another account without a penalty of another inquiry. The part that sucks is the only way to cancel it seems it to write them and send by snail mail.
@RobynJ totally get it. You were smarter than me. Back when my rebuild started a decade ago, I got hemmed up with 3 similar cards and found myself having to jump thru hoops to get them canceled. I will not sit by idly on behalf of my MyFico peeps ever. 😉
@RobynJ wrote:Fast forward 6 months later as of August 1st these are my Fico 8 scores and my Fico 9 are in the low 800's. I hope this helps and please ask any questions as everyone on here helped me and I hope I can also help others.
Bravo! Great job!
What were your mortgage scores in August (or even September)? When I got my first FICO scores on all 3 CBs 7 months after my nRewards secure CC was approved, I only had 2 CCs reporting, so with AZEO, I had 50% with balances. Sure enough, I got dinged with "Too many accounts with balances" on Experian and Equifax. My EX FICO 2 was 735, my TU FICO 4 was 717, and my EQ FICO 5 was 721. AoOA 7 months, AAoA 5 months, AoYRA 3 months. Inquiries in previous 12 months were EX 2, TU 2, EQ 0.
I imagine your mortgage scores are a bit better with such a low percentage of accounts with balances.
BTW, at first you're going to see your FICO scores gradually increase every month if you practice AZEO and don't apply for any new accounts, then after 1 year you'll see your FICO scores increase only once every three months. You'll see bonus points when either your oldest revolver or your AAoA hits 24 months.
@USMC_Winger wrote:
@RobynJ wrote:Fast forward 6 months later as of August 1st these are my Fico 8 scores and my Fico 9 are in the low 800's. I hope this helps and please ask any questions as everyone on here helped me and I hope I can also help others.
Bravo! Great job!
What were your mortgage scores in August (or even September)? When I got my first FICO scores on all 3 CBs 7 months after my nRewards secure CC was approved, I only had 2 CCs reporting, so with AZEO, I had 50% with balances. Sure enough, I got dinged with "Too many accounts with balances" on Experian and Equifax. My EX FICO 2 was 735, my TU FICO 4 was 717, and my EQ FICO 5 was 721. AoOA 7 months, AAoA 5 months, AoYRA 3 months. Inquiries in previous 12 months were EX 2, TU 2, EQ 0.
I imagine your mortgage scores are a bit better with such a low percentage of accounts with balances.
BTW, at first you're going to see your FICO scores gradually increase every month if you practice AZEO and don't apply for any new accounts, then after 1 year you'll see your FICO scores increase only once every three months. You'll see bonus points when either your oldest revolver or your AAoA hits 24 months.
My current scores are:
I think they are lower because the amount of new accounts in 6 months and a total of 7 inquiries across the board 3 TU 2 EQ 2 EX