Quick Questions

[Anonymous]

My wife and I are currently trying to get into a house.  My score is a 616 and will not budge.  The mortgage woman is afraid to pull my score because she doesn't want to negatively impact it by pulling too much.  We are running out of time and I need those 4 points desperately. 

Will pulling the score using MyFICO impact me at all?

How can I get 4 points YESTERDAY?

They've suggested getting a secured credit card, but I'm leery about that.

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi, welcome to the forums!

No, pulling your own credit reports (and associated scores) from here or anywhere else won't hurt your score. They're what are known as soft inquiries. When lenders pull reports, they are hard inquiries, and they will lower your scores, to a point.

You can get your Equifax (EQ) FICO score, called the Beacon 5.0, here, and you can get a TransUnion (TU) FICO here, but it's probably an older model than your lender uses. Tell here that it's a TU 98. You can't buy your Experian (EX) FICO score anywhere, although lots of places will be delighted to sell you your FAKO scores. If you're a member of a specific credit union in Pennsylvania, your EX FICO is supplied on your statements, but that's it.

In terms of tweaking out the last 4 points, we would need to know a lot more. What's currently keeping your scores down? Ask your lender what the negative factors on all three reports are, in order. If you can share these reasons here, we might be able to help.

Which report has the 614 score? You have three credit reports, each with its own FICO score, and it's extremely rare that they're all identical. Are you just concentrating on getting your middle score up?

The only quick fix is to reduce your revolving utilization ("util") if it's too high. Most CC's update on their statement dates, and if you pay them down or off before the statement drops, and then allow the CRA's to update your balances on each account, you might well see an improvement there. Also, pay enough on each account that each account except one is paid in full. Let a small amount report on that one, and then pay it off. This is popularly refered to as the "FICO scoring game", and it can create some nice score hops. If you can't pay them off in full, try to have as many as you can report $0 by paying off the small balances, and getting the others as low as you can.