Need advice on how to pay off cards for mortgage score increase

[Anonymous]

Hi friends, i need advice on how to pay off following cards to increase my mortgage score. Following are my scores and card details:

My FICO Score 8 EQ - 742 TU - 723 EX - 699

My Mortgage Scores EQ - 722, TU - 663, EX - 683

My open card balances -

APPLE CARD - 2953 balance. Limit - 5250. 56% Utilization

DCU Card - 2383 balance. Limit - 10,000 - 23% utilization

Pentagon Credit Union - 2150 balance. Limit - 15000 - 15% utilization

Citi cards - 155 balance. Limit - 500. - 31% utilization. Already paid this $155, yet to report

Paypal - 289 balance. Limit - 2500.

I am confused about the following options.

1) Pay off everything.

2) Pay off all but one. If yes, which account i should leave with balance and how much

3) Should i pay specific percentage on all accounts and leave 6% balance on each of them

Which of these will give me the best possible mortgage score bump? Thanks for your time.

[dragontears]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Hi friends, i need advice on how to pay off following cards to increase my mortgage score. Following are my scores and card details:

My FICO Score 8 EQ - 742 TU - 723 EX - 699

My Mortgage Scores EQ - 722, TU - 663, EX - 683

My open card balances -

APPLE CARD - 2953 balance. Limit - 5250. 56% Utilization

DCU Card - 2383 balance. Limit - 10,000 - 23% utilization

Pentagon Credit Union - 2150 balance. Limit - 15000 - 15% utilization

Citi cards - 155 balance. Limit - 500. - 31% utilization. Already paid this $155, yet to report

Paypal - 289 balance. Limit - 2500.

I am confused about the following options.

1) Pay off everything.

2) Pay off all but one. If yes, which account i should leave with balance and how much

3) Should i pay specific percentage on all accounts and leave 6% balance on each of them

Which of these will give me the best possible mortgage score bump? Thanks for your time.

---

To get the biggest boost to mortgage scores, pay ALL of them off and leave a $10 balance on only one card (doesn't matter which).

[Anonymous]

Thank you @DR . Sometimes, i have seen score dropping when i pay full balance for an account. Is it temporary?

[dragontears]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you @DR . Sometimes, i have seen score dropping when i pay full balance for an account. Is it temporary?

---

Which model do you see that for? For FICO8 AU, store and CU cards can be treated differently for scoring purposes but that doesn't apply to mortgage scores to the best of my knowledge. 

[Anonymous]

Thank you. i think the scores drop i saw was on Fico Score 8 and not for mortgage scores.

[Revelate]

I'd leave a yuppie food stamp on the Citi card personally though $10 or even $5 is fine too, everything else 0.  One balance on a national bankcard that is in your name (not AU) = optimal for everyone on every relevant score.

Yes retail and CU and other cards *should* be counted the same, but I've seen some wonky behavior with CU cards on EX FICO 2 and DCU is explicitly one of those, not worth it risking it on a mortgage app.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Revelate. In your experience, have seen Fico 8 being different than the mortgage score?. I see score drop in Fico 8 when i pay off credit cards

[JVille]

AZERO - all zero except one and the one needs to be a National credit card like Citibank.... 

[Adkins]

---

@JVille wrote:

AZERO - all zero except one and the one needs to be a National credit card like Citibank.... 

---

And not a Chase credit card. Chase will report a zero balance once the card is paid to zero. 

[4sallypat]

I was in the same situation last year when we were looking for a house.

Found a patient mortgage broker who knew that we could not pay off all our debt (AZEO) so he had us work on the ones that affected 5,4,2 mortgage scores.

Over a period of 4 months, we paid down only certain major cards (less than 9% UT) and left the store cards, co-branded and LOC alone.

Overall debt at that time went from $40K to $25K which helped our scores tremendously.

Went from mid 600s to low 700s.

Worth finding a good, patient, score simulator mortgage broker!