@2b2rich wrote:2.5 years post BK7 discharge and no baddies, lates, derogs etc since filing.
Newest account is an Avant card with a $3K CL added about 4 months ago (keep it at zero).
In the past 6 weeks I have:
*Paid revolving credit from $19k down to $11k (combined CLs are $27K)
*Paid off a $19,800 auto loan (a new one will be hitting shortly).
*Of the revolving I paid down, I paid in full 4 cards and of the others, 3 are < 29% and 3 are < 59%
*One personal loan was paid in full (balance was $375)
*One personal loan left that was taken out a year ago at $2,800 and is paid down to $1,100 now)
I also closed the Target card with a CL of $500. It has been $900 but they reduced my CL to $500 for non use in a year. (They reduced it about 2-3 months ago).
I had been working on paying all of these down and the 3 of my scores had rose about 4 pts each. Then one day I got a notification that EQ had dropped 11pts, (It was actually 7 pts one day and 4 pts the very next day. EQ was 675 when it started dropping.
I would imagine that closing Target (though it was only about a year old) and paying off the auto loan and the $375 personal loan caused the drop?
I would love to get my scores moving up again and I know that paying of the rest of my revolving (will be done in the next 4 months or sooner) is going to help, even though MyFico simulator shows it will have only a 5 pt increase to TU (I know, you can't go by the simulator lol, but just thought I would mention it because EQ and EX do show about a 30 pt increase when I do that).
The Fico 8s are currently EQ: 664 TU: 659 EX:663
Your thoughts please?
Well there was a lot going on but I feel it is highly likely that it was the payoff of 2 of your 3 loans that caused it. Most likely, because the 2 loans were mostly paid down, you had an aggregate installment utilization percentage below 10%, which is a 'sweet spot' for installment utilization. Once you paid off those 2 loans, you wound up with an installment utilization percentage of 40%. Not to worry, though, because (a) the mortgage scores don't react as seriously, and (b) this decrease will take some or all of the sting out of your new auto loan.
I think you would have had a bigger point loss but for all the good things that were happening, such as reducing your revolving utilization, and getting 4 revolvers down to zero.
I don't think there was any point in closing the Target card, since the more zero balance cards you report, the better. But I don't think that factored into the dip.
At this point try to get all high utilization revolvers to below 48% or less.
And then work on getting them down to 28% or less.
@2b2rich wrote:Thanks to both of you and everything y'all pointed out makes total sense.
The two credit pulls on the auto loan were after the 11 pt drop and interestingly enough no change to my scores.
I will get the rest of my revolving paid off over the next couple of months and after thats done, double up on the auto loan payments for awhile to bring it down some.
The only other thing I can think of is to maybe refinance my home with a VA IRRL since it stopped being reported after the BK7.
Does that sound about right?
I don't know about refinancing your home. I think it's better to just keep paying it down.