Are FICO memberships worth it?

[brbmake]

Hubby and I are looking at buying a house in about 5-6 months.  Neadless to say I have become obsessed with our scores, lol.  We have used Credit Karma for a long time as we were rebuilding our credit.  I do think it has value in that sense.  However, a few days ago, someone on this boards told me I should check our real FICO scores.  They recommened Credit Check Total.  I paid the $1 each for hubby and I and found out that our scores were almost identical to what Credit Karma had reported.  And, as a side note, it was a total PITA to get the Credit Check Total account cancelled.  Anyway, I have been looking at monthly options for our FICO scores.  All the big 3 offer memberships, as well as MyFico.  Are any of them worth it?  More specifically, are any of them worth it for mortgages?  We will not be doing VA.  Just conventional.  I found that Discover offers a FICO score for free, even for non-cardholders.  It is the creditscorecard.com.  However, it only updates once a month and like I said, I am a little obsessive at the moment. 

We recently paid down all of our credit cards to under 20% and have asked for an early exclusion for 1 late car payment 78 months ago.  Transunion already approved this, waiting on the other 2.  So, there are some changes that I am expecting to our credit report, hence the obsessive checking.  

DH FICO- 733, Mine 719.

[Anonymous]

If you're going to apply for a mortgage, you'll want the mortgage FICOs, commonly referred to as Fico 2, 4 and 5. I haven't found a way myself to get regular updates of all 3, but maybe someone else will have an idea. I'm currently doing a free trial on Experian that gives hubby and I regular Fico 8 and 2 updates, but that's about it. The one time Myfico report will give all 3 mortgage FICOs, but at almost $60, it's pretty pricey. I believe the subscription still only updates the mortgage FICOs quarterly, but I may be wrong.

We are in the same boat as you. My plan is to monitor our FICO 8s for a general idea for now, then purchase the full report with mortgage scores a little closer to final application.

[Anonymous]

My vote is always against monthly memberships.  To me, it's just throwing money away.  I can spend $2 on a pair of $1 CCT trials and get weekly 3B report/score updates during times that I feel I need that much.  Otherwise I can get 1 a month or even go several months without a $1 trial if I know I have nothing going on with my file.  Almost all memberships from what I understand only give you monthly updates, which just seems not worth it to me for what you pay.  Just my opinion.  I do think there's value in getting all of your scores (mortgage included) from MF once in a while if there's a reason to do so such as an upcoming mortgage app.  Aside from that, free monitoring tools are the way to go with CCT $1 trials thrown in as desired.

[Anonymous]

If a person plans to buy a house soon (next five months, as per the OP) then enrolling in the $40/mo myFICO Ultimate product is the smart decision.  Even smarter, however, in my opinion, is to delay your enrollment until you can get all cards reporting zero except one (AZEO) with the remaining card.....

(1) reporting a small positive balance, like $10-15

(2) being a true credit card (not a charge card)

(3) being a card in your name (not an AU card)

(4) having a credit limit of less than 34.9k

Since our OP is experienced with using Credit Karma, that's a nice tool for checking to see when your CC balances have changed to their AZEO status.

The mortgage models have a special liking for AZEO, especially the EQ score.

The OP can always cancel the membership if it becomes clear that his or her mortgage scores are very high.

If a person does not have a mortgage coming up, then I agree with BBS completely.  Paying $500 a year when you could be paying $0 and still getting frequent reports and FICO 8 scores seems an imprudent use of money -- but that's just my opinion.

[SouthJamaica]

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@brbmake wrote:

Hubby and I are looking at buying a house in about 5-6 months.  Neadless to say I have become obsessed with our scores, lol.  We have used Credit Karma for a long time as we were rebuilding our credit.  I do think it has value in that sense.  However, a few days ago, someone on this boards told me I should check our real FICO scores.  They recommened Credit Check Total.  I paid the $1 each for hubby and I and found out that our scores were almost identical to what Credit Karma had reported.  And, as a side note, it was a total PITA to get the Credit Check Total account cancelled.  Anyway, I have been looking at monthly options for our FICO scores.  All the big 3 offer memberships, as well as MyFico.  Are any of them worth it?  More specifically, are any of them worth it for mortgages?  We will not be doing VA.  Just conventional.  I found that Discover offers a FICO score for free, even for non-cardholders.  It is the creditscorecard.com.  However, it only updates once a month and like I said, I am a little obsessive at the moment. 

We recently paid down all of our credit cards to under 20% and have asked for an early exclusion for 1 late car payment 78 months ago.  Transunion already approved this, waiting on the other 2.  So, there are some changes that I am expecting to our credit report, hence the obsessive checking.  

DH FICO- 733, Mine 719.

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1. At this juncture your Vantage 3.0 scores supplied by Credit Karma are meaningless, so disregard them.

2. Even your FICO 8's provided by CCT are fairly meaningless for mortgage purposes.

3. The only scores that count are your FICO mortgage scores, EQ FICO 5, TU FICO 4, and EX FICO 2. Your mortgage lender will look at all 3 and take the middle score as the one on which to rely.

4. Unfortunately, I don't know anywhere else to get those all important scores. So IMHO you have to pay the piper.

[Anonymous]

Since you are worried about getting a mortgage... If you have a lender in mind Ask them which fico scoring model they use. most will tell you. Then if you want you can spend 39.99 for monthly or 29.99 for quarterly reporting. They both update monthly but the quarterly does not pull new reports. They just go off the last report they have. the 39.99 gives you a new credit report monthly and bases the score off it. Personally i dont see the reason behind monthly if i have clean files like i do. I have 2 out of 3 clean files. I have 1 derog on my transunion which i am working on. The only thing affecting my scores are age of file, and Utilization once i get my utilization down from where it is and let it age by end of year i will have 720+ scores on 2 of the 3. Once i clean up that derog that score will jump. You have a healthy score , you could apply now for a mortgage and get approved. Unless you are still tweaking your score.. anything over a 620 is typically approved for a mortgage. Yes you can shave points by being over a 750... OR you could get a mortgage and just pay lump sums one a year to shave that interest off by lowering the principle. You can have a mortgage at 6 percent and still pay less in interest than someone at 2 percent if you do it right. So it just comes down to what you plan on doing. Personally i would do the quarterly reports.. which also helps with id theft and just make sure nothing negative hits while you plan your mortgage purchase.

[Anonymous]

My hubby and I are looking to apply for a preapproval by August of this year. I purchased the MyFico $40 per month membership for each of us. I has the mortgage scores on it. The Fico 8 updates each time your credit report changes but it does a complete update each month for all scores. Our mortgage scores went up 50 pts between April and May reports. I wouldnt have known that if I didnt have the MyFico membership. It's $80 a month for both of us but since we have some repairs to do its worth it for me. 

[Jnbmom]

I have the Experian 3-Bureau Credit Report and FICO® Scores for 19.99 a month, first month was free. EXP is daily report and score and I get quarterly for EQ and TU but get an changes from all them as soon as they appear.

  It also gives me the Mortgage FICO and Auto FICO as well as the bankcard FICO with my  EXP daily pull.

I really like it so far