Raising mortgage FICOs

[Anonymous]

Hi

We’re trying to raise my husband’s mortgage FICOs to 680 ideally but at least 660. EX is 669 and TU is 649 and those are the two highest.

We paid down a credit card from near maximum to like 3% utilization. That hasn’t his TU yet so that may go up. We’re starting to use AZEO as well. Other cards are all paid off and have been.

He has one 30 day late from 8 months ago. If we can get that off, will that make much of a difference in the mortgage scores? Does AZEO help mortgage scores?

Another option we have is to get a vehicle out of my husband’s name to open up his DTI. Would that negatively impact his scores? He would still have student loans in his name.

The other issue I noticed is we put his student loans into IBR repayment. I’m not sure if it was always like this but his loans all show a payment that isn’t actually the payment. He has one $40 a month payment for those. In IBR do they typically report a different amount on credit reports and if so is there a way around that? It will totally screw up our DTI if they use what’s on there.

Thanks!

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

The 30-day late payment from 8 months ago is definitely dinging his scores, and could potentially prevent him from getting approved, so getting it removed will improve the scores and his chances of approval.  "Much of a difference" is what you define it as, without running a simulator it's tough to guess how many points he'd gain.

If you are qualifying for Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac (conventional) financing, then for student loans not in deferment, the payment that is listed on the credit report can be used to qualify or if you have documentation on the actual payment then that can be used instead (Fannie Mae's guideline).   VA will also go by that guideline.  FHA & USDA do not use IBR payments and will use 1% of the balance to qualify instead.

Regarding the AZEO & paying off a vehicle's impact to scores questions, https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/bd-p/ficoscoring would be a better section to post those in.

[KELSTAR]

IMO Do not apply for anything! From my experience, mortgage scores are the most sensitive to inquiries.

I went through closing a home in May and middle FICO MORTGAGE score was 752. Closed on home and applied for 3 cards I wanted and that score went to 699 in 1 month. The FICO 8 version went down 7 points in same time. In veiwing my mortgage scores up to the time of approval the mortgage scores jumped about 30 points on average at 6 months without an application of any of the bureaus.

Good luck!