Advice needed! Lack of revolving account help please

[Anonymous]

Ok guy here's my issues

I'm looking to get a mortgage soon and I also want to keep a strong score.

Im sitting at 783 eq 778 trans and 650 ex (paid judgement that falls off in 2 weeks and a paid collection)

My delima is this.

One of the things hurting my score is "Lack of revolving account". Now I have a 6500 limit discover card that I've had for 12 years but no other open cards.

I also Have a 2 year car loan.

Is it worth it to open a chase card (pre qualified for freedom already) to try to increase my score further or should I wait untill I close on my mortgage?

[Anonymous]

You can safely ignore that message. Your scores are already high enough to qualify for the best rates. They'll use your middle score. The last thing you should do right now is open another account.

[Anonymous]

I totally agree with Captool.  The only caveat I would make is that you don't explain exactly where you are getting your scores.  It sometimes happens that a person thinks he has his "FICO scores" only to discover that the scores he has are not the ones his mortgage lender will use.

FICO makes many different kinds of scores.  One flavor is used by mortgage lenders.  Many other flavors are used by other lenders.  Here is a post today from someone who was confident that he know what his FICO scores were, only to discover that his mortgage scores were far lower:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Denied-a-house-loan-from-Quicken/td-p/454...

BTW, when do you guess you might close on a house?  May be a very rough guess (e.g. "late summer this year") but any guess would helpful in advising you best.  Closing a month from now is very different from closing in a year.

[Revelate]

If you haven't done so already, as soon as that judgement falls off pull the 3B report here: that's really the only way short of a lender making a mortgage pull to obtain the 3 scores used for the mortgage trifecta.

They are not the same as the FICO 8's commonly found in various places, and I absolutely would never ever recommend making changes this close to pulling the trigger for a mortgage unless absolutely necessary; from what you describe, it won't be, but know what you're getting into before you talk to a LO and shortcut like 90% of the stupid things.

[Anonymous]

Hey guys

I'm getting my fico 8 scores from here at myfico.

I plan on closing in roughly a month. 

Originally I planed to close in aguest after I secured a Chase card and Amex card and since those would pull from transunion and experian respectly that in 3 months time they would be more of a positive than a negative.

The only reason im considering getting a card now is I'm wondering if the plus of having a revoling line  wold be greater than the 5-10 short term hit of the inquiry.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey guys

I'm getting my fico 8 scores from here at myfico.

I plan on closing in roughly a month. 

Originally I planed to close in aguest after I secured a Chase card and Amex card and since those would pull from transunion and experian respectly that in 3 months time they would be more of a positive than a negative.

The only reason im considering getting a card now is I'm wondering if the plus of having a revoling line  wold be greater than the 5-10 short term hit of the inquiry.

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You need to check your Fico 4's, that's what the majority of mortgage lenders use. But if they're near your Fico 8's, you're already good to go. Being only a month out, do not app for another credit card now.

[Anonymous]

Right.  So this is why I asked you where you were getting your scores, and why I emphasized the importance of finding out out what your mortgage scores were.  FICO 8 scores are not your mortgage scores.

You have a very tight timeline.  Since you will be closing in 30 days, it probably makes sense to purchase all your scores at MF tomorrow.  Ordinarily I would agree with R that you should delay purchase of the scores until after your derogs feel off, but the timeline urgency probably precludes that.  The time to discover that your mortgage scores are much lower than your FICO 8s is now.  (Hopefully they will be roughly the same.)  You can always buy them once now and once after the derogs fall off.

R and CT are absolutely right that you should not open any new accounts -- now that we know your timeline.

[Anonymous]

Is there a resource to see what factors weigh the heaviest on fico 4?

My fico 4 are only just over 700 on all 3.

I really want to get these at least close to 740 if possible and im having a hard time seeing what can increase my fico 4 scores. My reports are extremely clean right now so if there are some simple things I can do to improve my score I'm all for it.

I'm under 25% utilization on my credit card outside of getting that to 9% i'm really not sure how else i can improve my score outside of getting new credit.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Is there a resource to see what factors weigh the heaviest on fico 4?

My fico 4 are only just over 700 on all 3.

I really want to get these at least close to 740 if possible and im having a hard time seeing what can increase my fico 4 scores. My reports are extremely clean right now so if there are some simple things I can do to improve my score I'm all for it.

I'm under 25% utilization on my credit card outside of getting that to 9% i'm really not sure how else i can improve my score outside of getting new credit.

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Only being a month away there's really nothing you can do other than the drop in util you just mentioned. It isn't enough time for anything else.

[Anonymous]

Is your timeline flexible ar all?  Any way you could push back closing to 60 days from now, say?  If so, how flexible?

The more you can lower your CC debt, the better.  It's not an all-or-nothing issue -- like you have to get it your utilization to below 9% or there's no point in doing anything.  For example, if you could get your total utilization to below 18.9%, I suspect that would help.

Also, can you tell us how many credit cards you have?  And of these cards, how many currently have a $0 balance?  You will get some extra points for having all your cards at $0 except one.

I am really surprised to hear that your Experian mortgage score is above 700, since your Experian FICO 8 is at 650.  Are you sure about that?  Does that mean your derogs have all fallen off, sooner than you expected?