Quick rebuild questions

[Anonymous]

I needs some advice please. Last fall, we decided to sell our home and we wanted to build in an established area, pick your plan sort of scenario. We had some work to do on our home. I got a $5000 credit card to use to complete work on the house we were selling in Sept. Contractor couldn't start until late October, early Nov. So I didnt use the card until November at all. On Nov 1st, we got preapproved for a mortgage for the home we wanted to build. Our house sold in Mid January, We signed contract on Feb 17th for new build. the mortgage co said the preapproval was still OK, and construction started on the new house in the past week (mid March). Soooo. in the mean time, I maxed out the CC on the renovated bathroom in the old house. I have only been paying minimum payments to, not realizing what that would do to my credit score. I joined myfico at the advice of a friend, and almost cried when I realized my equifax score dropped 100 points since November.  So- I used my savings and have paid off my CC, so that now there is only $400 on it (out the $5000 limit, then I have another small $500 card which has a 0 balance - so about 8% usage).

We think we will close in July, but the mortgage guy actually wants to pull credit again in a month or so....

I have equifax from here, 595 as of today, I got TU from creditKarma( because it was free) says 630, I got my Experian from credit.com it says 704 (also free). Would it change if I got them all from myFICO?? Why that much disparity?? 

I did notice that both cards are reported on Equifax, but only the smaller card is reported to TU and Experian.

Should I: request a credit line increase on the small card, maybe just to $1000? payment history is fine, but it did get maxed out a christmas and sat there until a couple of weeks ago...

or should I see if I can get the credit union that gave me the $5000 card to report to the other 2 credit bureaus? (Now that that card is paid down under 10%,

Sorry this is long, I  have never understood this process so much, and I honestly had no idea how this would work until now!!

Thankfully, my hubby's credit is in the 700 range, so that'll help I think. But I dont want mine to mess us up with our beautiful new home we've been planning for for months!!

[StaticRaven]

If the major drop was due to utilization (you carrying the maxxed out balance) then your score should go up rapidly, IIRC FICO has no memory when it comes to utilization.

Regarding the scores, they may or may not change, though those scores are NOT what the lender will be using during the final underwriting when you convert to conventional. If you want to pull those scores, pull the myfico.com scores, those are real FICO. The others you listed are all FAKO scores (which are good for estimation and getting an idea where you stand, but they are meaningless as far as the lender is concerned).

Raising your balance will help with your utilization, but if it's currently at 8% then you won't see much of an improvement if it drops lower then that, so I don't think it'd be worthwhile to get the balance increase. 

So if I was in your shoes, I'd wait till the CC's reported the updated balances, then pull reports and scores from here to see where you stand. Also signing up for ScoreWatch might be nice for you, since it tracks your Equifax report (only) and updates your score and notifies you of changes to your Equifax report the day they happen.. or clsoe enough anyways.

[Anonymous]

Thanks!! 

After I posted I read about the FAKO versus FICO - I had no idea! With this knowledge, as I continue to think about it,  I'll sit back and let the cards report again (capital one will report on 4/14) and just that'll drop the last statement's balance by $500. Which will reflect on all 3 scores - because it's the only one that reports to all 3...

I am just learning to play this game, that now, at 35 years old, I just realized was a game I was even in....

[StaticRaven]

Good luck! The hardest thing with working your credit is having patience.