Using My FICO subscription service as I try to quickly improve score?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I need to jump my score by about 100 points in the next 30-90 days (applying for a mortgage). Has anyone used the FICO subscription products during this process? Just trying to determine if it's worth $39 a month. 

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

100 points in that short of time? It's possible to do if you have the right conditions on your reports to adjust, but that's quite a stretch. And if you haven't already subscribed to the 3B reports, you aren't seeing your mortgage scores, which could be significantly different from whatever scores you're seeing (which are probably worthless Vantage scores).

It's definitely a good idea to subscribe to the MyFico reports while you prep for a mortgage app. In order to get your scores up, you'll need to find out what is holding them down (collections, high CC util, lates, etc) and address all those.

[Anonymous]

Thank you @JoeFriday! I agree, it's aggressive. I have to pay down a few things to get my utilization down and get rid of a few "baddies" and I'm hoping I'll be closer. I'll know more once I hear from the mortgage lender, but I'm trying to get ahead of the game. I think I will subscribe...I like the idea of seeing what lenders see.

[Anonymous]

I'm in the same boat as you. I hope to purchase a home in the next 3 months. So far I haven't subscribed to the 3B reports since I have one baddie on one report that I need to address first. No point in paying for a report today if I can fix it next week and then have to wait a month for the report to update again.

Likewise, if you already know what you need to address, you might want to wait to subscribe. Get your reports cleaned up first, and then pull the 3B reports to get your scores. But I'd still recommend getting the reports before talking to a lender so you don't have any unpleasant surprises when you sit down in front of them.

Edit: Apparently the subscription includes credit change alerts, so you should be notified quickly of any score changes. You just won't be able to generate a new report until your subscription allows (either monthly or quarterly).