Raising Fico 8 score add credit cards or not?

[Anonymous]

I'm working on raising mine and my husbands scores to obtain a mortgage. I've read and realize Fico 8 can be a brutal animal and those scores are almost 50pts lower than our Primary(?) Scores. Our basic FICO scores are 671 688 (688 on TU ...well it just went to 645 due to a glitch in an installment loan. I just paid off never late and it was wrongly reported 120+ days late and I almost passed out but have been told it would be fixed ASAP...that was a week ago....Eq and Ex both show pd in full on the same loan and my score went up a few points. I am pretty infuriated considering how much work ive put into raising our scores ) I digress....
I learn new things every day and apparently not having enough credit card limit is hurting me(rather not having enough is not helping me).
One issue the mortgage lender had was too many inquiries. We purchased a vehicle in May and the dealer ran credit 6 times. I'm pretty annoyed but I dont know if I could do anything about that.
I'm trying to figure out if applying for more credit cards would improve my score enough to make much difference. Also, she already said we need to let some inquiries fall off so I'm in a catch-22.
I have a 35% utilization on 7100.00 on 5 cards. I've read that I should have 100,000. Limit with 9 cards.
I thought about asking my mom to make me an AU on one of her high limit/ low use cards. But I don't know if I can make her understand how that works.
No matter how much I improve my scores, my Fico 8s never budge.
I have a million questions and I'm all over the place so I'll stop here and ask another question on a different post.
We are trying to secure this mortgage by February and we have been actively making improvements since November.
Thank you to who may reply. I greatly appreciate all the help I can get!

[CreditInspired]

Absolutely, unequivocally, do NOT apply for anymore credit. The info about needing $100K limit with 9 CCs is ludicrous! All you need is 3 CCs, one installment loan, UT less than 8.9%, and on-time payments for max FICO scoring.

I’m so happy you found MyFICO because you’ll get informative info from this forum.

Your LO is right—No more inqs. Also, where are you getting your scores?

[Anonymous]

Thank you. I'm getting my scores from here in myFICO. I want to say I have avoided applying for more CC because I didnt think it was a good idea but I guess I was looking anywhere I could for a way to boost my scores and read somewhere (not Myfico) I should have more credit limit.
I've raised my scores 30-50pts. Since November. I've avoided credit like the plague and will continue to do so.

[Anonymous]

Also, what is UT? And I had some late payments in 2016 I think it was 3 in 3 months on 3 loans(during work layoff) and so 9 lates over 2 yrs ago or about to be 2 yrs. Thank you so much again. I have so many questions!

[Anonymous]

UT is utilization i.e. percent of your available credit that you are using. 

[CreditInspired]

Have the lates dropped off of your CR?

UT is utilization on each of your CCs and across the board. Here’s a link to common abbreviations:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/User-Guidelines-General/Common-Abbreviations/m-p/88458

[Anonymous]

Ok thank you. I need to pay my cc's down a bit more then. I have been reading up on Fico 8 scores and already see where I need to do some work. I'm getting closer....

[Anonymous]

The lates are from Feb Mar April of 2016 so I think I have a while to go.

[Anonymous]

Your best course of action is to contact the lender(s) where the late payments occurred and ask them if they would do a goodwill adjustment to remove the late payments reporting to the credit bureaus.  If you search for the term "goodwill letter" you should find lots of examples of effective letters.   This thread should be particularly helpful to you:  The Saturation Technique: Best GW adjustment odds.

As previously stated you don't need additional credit cards.  If you pay down your current balances so that your aggregate utilization is below 28.9% you should see a bump in your scores.  You will get an even larger bump if you can pay your aggregate utilization down to below 8.9%.

[Anonymous]

Goodwill letters was my next course of action. Thank you for the links! Letters going out today!
I have been throwing all extra money at these credit cards every week and they are quickly dropping.