1 mortgage point away....

[Anonymous]

I am in the process of buying a house. Thanks to the wise advise of the members of this forum, over the past years I have been building up my credit after a bankruptcy in 2013. Now 4 years post Chapter 7, I qualified for a mortage loan and will be making offers this week.

My midmortgage credit score is 739. The lender told me I need to get it to 740 for the best rate. One point away.

The lender will run the credit again this month. My score has been increasing this year, and I hope that in the first week of Dec it will be at least 1 point better. But the lender is concerned that if I run my score through myfico.com I will be dinged a few points, like a credit enquiry. 

I don't think that myfico requests affect scores, but wanted to check.

As for maximizing my score, my 3 credit card balances are at 0 except for 1, which has a very small balance, less than 9% of the total available. I opened an Alliance installment account per the forum's instructions last year, and will keep it open, it is a small payment, until I buy the house.

Any other suggestions? And about the credit score?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

MyFico does not do a hard inquiry so it's safe.

1 point is impossible to guess -- when was the last time you opened a new account of any kind on your reports?  4 months after your last new account is opened, you get a few points back.  7 months after the last new account is opened, you get some points back.

Utilization is key, of course.  Paying down to less than 9% (5% is safer) but not $0 is super important.  3 credit cards is actually dinging your score in the "credit mix" area (55 total points) but it's too late to fix that.  For maximum points in "credit mix" you want 5 credit cards that are all over 24 months of age.  So after closing and getting the keys, open 2 more credit cards from prime banks and 2 years later your scores will be even higher.

Also, what's the age of your oldest account on your report?  If it bumps up to another scorecard age tier, you will get up to 10 points from that.

[DollyLama]

Is the installment loan you opened for the credit mix current balance under 9%? 

Myfico reports and mine are monthly do not ding your reports, if that was true, I'd be about 55 pts lower and hit each and every month. 

You happen to know when your oldest and last inquiry by a Creditor is on your reports? Preferably the one at 739, since they usually do a tri-merge of the 3 bureaus and use the middle score (this is the one they care about).

[Anonymous]

 Yes, there have been 4 mortgage enquiries since oct. and none since Dec until yesterday the new lender told me about the lowered score

[Anonymous]

good stuff, thanks. My oldest credit goes back 30 years.