When Should I Apply For My Mortgage/Credit Card Balances/Utilization

[Anonymous]

Hell All!

Thanks for all the great responses I always receive and also provided to others asking questions!

I'm going to be applying for a mortgage very shortly and I would like some clarification on a point I can't seem to find the answer to.

I need all the help I can get with my credit so I just ran the reports here and both of them are showing some a high credit card balance that represents a utilization of 50% of a $14000 credit limit card.  The amount shown is the amount that was due for August 28th which has already been paid off in full.

I would either like the new, much lower balance to show (the previous one paid for part of a honeymoon, we never, ever charge that much, it's just bad timing) or no balance at all to show.

My question is if I dispute the balance, will it show the new statement balance due or, if I pay it off in full now and wait to dispute, will it reflect a $0 balance at Amex?  If it will reflect the actual amount, I'll go ahead and pay it off.  If it's the statement balance, I'll wait until the following month to set it up if we can.

If I'm not clear, let me know and I'll provide some more info!

Thanks!

[Lel]

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scorens wrote:

Hell All!

Thanks for all the great responses I always receive and also provided to others asking questions!

I'm going to be applying for a mortgage very shortly and I would like some clarification on a point I can't seem to find the answer to.

I need all the help I can get with my credit so I just ran the reports here and both of them are showing some a high credit card balance that represents a utilization of 50% of a $14000 credit limit card.  The amount shown is the amount that was due for August 28th which has already been paid off in full.

I would either like the new, much lower balance to show (the previous one paid for part of a honeymoon, we never, ever charge that much, it's just bad timing) or no balance at all to show.

My question is if I dispute the balance, will it show the new statement balance due or, if I pay it off in full now and wait to dispute, will it reflect a $0 balance at Amex?  If it will reflect the actual amount, I'll go ahead and pay it off.  If it's the statement balance, I'll wait until the following month to set it up if we can.

If I'm not clear, let me know and I'll provide some more info!

Thanks!

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There's nothing to "dispute" - your August statement balance is factually correct; you did use your card quite a bit for honeymoon expenses.  Congratulations, by the way.

You mentioned that your payment was due on August 28, and that you paid it off in full.  Did you already receive a statement for the payment that will be due on September 28?  My Amex payments were also due on the 28th of the month, and my statements close around the 9th of the month.  When I checked my EQ report on September 15, the new balance from my September 9 statement was already reporting.  TU was not yet updated with the new statement balance.   Check your reports to see when the "last activity" is recorded.  If it still says August, then the bureaus have not yet been updated with the new information after you paid off that large statement balance.   Once that happens - assuming you didn't run up a balance for your September statement - your utilization will be lower and your scores should improve.

When are you planning on applying for your mortgage, and what are your scores? 

[Anonymous]

Hi Lel,

I just checked my Equifax (score 663) and Trans Union (score 646).  The Equifax was run on 9/17 and the date of the last activity was August, 2009, and we already have received the statement for September, a couple of weeks ago (my wife checked hers just now and said hers, pulled on the same day, shows the same information as mine). The Trans Union was also run on the same date and the last activity date is "not reported".

I guess, during my meanderings on the website I saw that you can "dispute" a balance and indicate what that balance should be so what I was thinking was disputing the August balance and having it replaced with the September balance which is much, much better (utilization at 10%).

As for the mortgage application, we were looking to apply this week but I want to see how much of a difference this makes for me to get into that 680 range (that's my short term goal).

Thanks! 

[Anonymous]

Lel,

I just remembered....I called Amex's Credit Liaison department about the balance and they were the ones that indicated you can "dispute" the balance shown and it would only take a few days for that to be updated....