Credit Scores stay Stubborn - Please Advise

[Chestnut1]

Hello All -- Happy Holidays !!

I've been thinking, think a lot lately about my Credit scores. They seem to have come standstill after a good upward run this entire year. 

My Scores have pretty much remained same +/-1 point over the last 2 months now. Wondering what can i do to break this stubborness.

Events/Pending Items this year :

1. Starting at low 500s almost same time last year, I've seen significant improvement in my Scores when i actually started paying attention. During this time, I've brought down my Utl from 110%+ to <30%, further down to <19%, Further down to <8.9%. Currently they are around 3-4% Total UTL. These spaced out events + Timely Payments for 15+months gave me a good jump. 
2. I had 4 Baddies when i started off this year. now down to 2. BOA Secured CC (Charged off) fell off report this year in Novmeber (Did not give a huge boost). Made a Deal with First Progress Via Goodwill and they honored (on 12/10 last week Tuesday) to delete 2 30s and 4 60 lates (not reflecting on the CRAs yet. Do you think i should call back FP and ask them when they report it or it is when the Statement Balance comes out is when they report these deletes to CRA ? ). Not expecting a huge bump here but this will clean up my report by 50%.
3. BOA Unsecured CC. Closed 2/2013 (Made payements here and there and brought the balance down to $0. Shows on the CRs as "PAID_AS_AGREED" with $0balance). There are Several Lates 30/60/90/120/150 on the report with respect to this account . Latest late of 150 was reported in 7/2018. Now, I know this account is SERIOUSLY delinquent which is as good as a ChargeOff in nature and will impact the most and i also know for sure that getting rid of it will pretty much push my scores into Mid 700s. However, as we all know BOA is atough nut to Honor a 30 late Goodwill, Let alone MULTIPLE Serious lates. I kinda hit a roadblock with this one. 
4. JPMCB Auto Loan, charged off as bad debt. Balance $3,587. DoFD 7/2015. Shows on the report as Remain until 4/2022. I know this Negative account's impact must have slowly started wearing off (?) and i can bite the bullet and let this guy hang around till 4/2022.

Available Credit: $15,000. 6 Cards with Excellent payment history and Total Bal on all cards including is about $482 ( ~3%).

With the information above, What do you think my Next course of action should be ?. AZEO method should help ?. I have very small balances reported on 2-3 cards amounting to a total $482 The Scores seem to have literally made a standstill over the past 2 months. 

Note : My Primary Goal is to get a mortgage end of 2020 or early 2021 and the Middle Score right now is at 656 (Remarks saying this score is low because of some serious delinquencies) . I want to be able to Qualify for some Decent scores and want to put myself in a position to negoitate.

[Anonymous]

You will have to wait until negatives fall off. That way you should automatically roll in the the 700 hundred club! By waiting until 2022 that is. Be patient no lates no usage over 10% and oyu will see the change.

[FireMedic1]

Keep trying GW's with the baddies. Thats all you can do. The lates will hurt for the full 7rs. CO's also. Its an uphill battle. But you never know they may crack. But they arent know to do PFD. You can use your cards as much as you want. Let one report a balance of <8.9%. Thats about it.

[FireMedic1]

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@Anonymous wrote:

You will have to wait until negatives fall off. That way you should automatically roll in the the 700 hundred club! By waiting until 2022 that is. Be patient no lates no usage over 10% and oyu will see the change.

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Forget what the internet says. You can use a card all you want. Its whats reported that matters. Not the usage part. The more you swipe. The more the banks make. Which can lead to better CLI's with some banks.

[OmarGB9]

Yea I'm afraid you've done as much as you can do for now. AZEO may help a little, but the negatives will keep your scores suppressed until they fall off ot get deleted. GW and time is all you can do at the moment.

[Iusedtolurk]

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@Chestnut1 wrote:

Hello All -- Happy Holidays !!

I've been thinking, think a lot lately about my Credit scores. They seem to have come standstill after a good upward run this entire year. 

My Scores have pretty much remained same +/-1 point over the last 2 months now. Wondering what can i do to break this stubborness.

Events/Pending Items this year :

1. Starting at low 500s almost same time last year, I've seen significant improvement in my Scores when i actually started paying attention. During this time, I've brought down my Utl from 110%+ to <30%, further down to <19%, Further down to <8.9%. Currently they are around 3-4% Total UTL. These spaced out events + Timely Payments for 15+months gave me a good jump. Util looks really good
2. I had 4 Baddies when i started off this year. now down to 2. BOA Secured CC (Charged off) fell off report this year in Novmeber (Did not give a huge boost). Made a Deal with First Progress Via Goodwill and they honored (on 12/10 last week Tuesday) to delete 2 30s and 4 60 lates (not reflecting on the CRAs yet. Do you think i should call back FP and ask them when they report it or it is when the Statement Balance comes out is when they report these deletes to CRA ? ). Not expecting a huge bump here but this will clean up my report by 50%. Wouldn't hurt to doublecheck
3. BOA Unsecured CC. Closed 2/2013 (Made payements here and there and brought the balance down to $0. Shows on the CRs as "PAID_AS_AGREED" with $0balance). There are Several Lates 30/60/90/120/150 on the report with respect to this account . Latest late of 150 was reported in 7/2018. Now, I know this account is SERIOUSLY delinquent which is as good as a ChargeOff in nature and will impact the most and i also know for sure that getting rid of it will pretty much push my scores into Mid 700s. However, as we all know BOA is atough nut to Honor a 30 late Goodwill, Let alone MULTIPLE Serious lates. I kinda hit a roadblock with this one. You may hve to bite the bullet with this one BOA is known to be spiteful
4. JPMCB Auto Loan, charged off as bad debt. Balance $3,587. DoFD 7/2015. Shows on the report as Remain until 4/2022. I know this Negative account's impact must have slowly started wearing off (?) and i can bite the bullet and let this guy hang around till 4/2022. Noticed you haven't listed any open installment loans. One open installment loan will boost your credit score due to points derived from credit mix. I didn't have any installment loans when my credit scores were low 500s and opened a secured savings loan and my credit score jumped 20-25-40 points across the bureaus. YMMV as always.

Available Credit: $15,000. 6 Cards with Excellent payment history and Total Bal on all cards including is about $482 ( ~3%).

With the information above, What do you think my Next course of action should be ?. AZEO method should help ?. I have very small balances reported on 2-3 cards amounting to a total $482 The Scores seem to have literally made a standstill over the past 2 months. 

Note : My Primary Goal is to get a mortgage end of 2020 or early 2021 and the Middle Score right now is at 656 (Remarks saying this score is low because of some serious delinquencies) . I want to be able to Qualify for some Decent scores and want to put myself in a position to negoitate.

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[Chestnut1]

Thank you all for the wonderful Suggestions. 

Looks like I have no other go but give time for these 2 baddies to mature and fall off. Bummer. 

@lusedtolurk -- I do have an Auto Loan running for 3.5 years now, Excellent Standing. Never late. This will go on until 2022. 

All -- Do you think its wise to open a Personal Loan Account ?. I was thinking it might give some boost to my credit scores (I understand every profile is unique and also understand that it might/might not help me) and i can use that cash towards my savings too. 

I checked for some Pre-Qualified Personal Loans upto 10K and i have about 6 of them prequalified. Out of which, One Upstart offers $10,000 with 10.70% APR. 36 months Monthly $313. Is this a good offer to take ?. Is this Financial Institution any good ?

[Chestnut1]

Update :

1. First Progress Lates GW letter. Just got off call with First Progress who Honored to Delete Lates' history, now confirmed that it will be deleted when they send in next report to CRAs, which is Jan 7th (will keep an eye on it). That is sorted. 

2. BOA Credit Card Account. (Closed 2/2013. Paid and caught up. Last payment Reported $0, 7/2018). Called the Bank today to understand the likelyhood of removal. Got to Know that they stopped reporting this account to CRAs. they said they last reported it in 7/2018 and did not report it after. Thats 1.5 years since last reported. Called EX and got a confirmation that this account will be on the report till 7/2025 ( she is going by last balance reported date + 7 years). Could not understand the logic i was given since this is a Closed account 2/2013, it should fall off 2/2023 ?. Is my understanding not right ?. Anyway. I think i made a mistake by paying it off to $0 in July 2018. Should've let it CO and fall off/Worked on PFD. Alas, Only if i had discovered this forum and had this knowledge back then. This account now looks like a Deadlock. Is there nothing i can do ? ( I know some of you suggested that i just wait it out, but those late derogs last reported in 7/2018 (late 150) is just killing my score. I don't know how to go about this anymore. Any other way out ?. Looks like the Ball is in CRAs' court.

3. JPMCB Auto Loan balance $3,587. Due to fall off APR 2022 -- we will talk/tackle this later.

[Anonymous]

I've had my scores stay stagnant for months on end. Then sudden point gains. 

There are still some things you can do on your end and it looks like you're right on top of that, but sometimes it's just a waiting game. I've been so frustrated sometimes when I look forward to some supposed "milestone" or "thing" that is supposed to give me points...but when it happens, no point change. Then out of the blue (often at the start of a new month) boom! Some points!

Today my EX Fico 8 gained 6 points. I'm really happy about it but didn't expect it at all. I won't go into the boring details but I don't think that anything changed dramatically in today's report that caused the point jump. (There is obviously a reason for it, of course.) It is what it is.

[Chestnut1]

Update: TU gave me a 8 point Christmas gift moving my fico 8 score (finally some movement) into 680s. Yayyyy

Changes:

Credit limit increase (cap1 increased by $100)
Total Credit card balance decreased by $215.