Credit Lines More Important in Scoring than Debt

[Anonymous]

Hello all, Goal is to up scores as high as possible. Intend to either secure a HELOC, home equity loan and or long term balance transfer credit card. Need to consolidate debt at the most efficient, expeditious way possible. Getting closer to the 800. Attempted to lower debt to income by having my girlfriend take me off as authorized user on her cards. Backfired! Score plummeted. Apparently credit line decreased because of removal. Which I mistakenly thought was less important than her high debt credit cards. Thoughts? Actions? Was preparing to apply for transfer card for some debt pay down before applying for loan.

[FireMedic1]

Welcome!

Credit lines arent factored into a credit score. You can have 3 cards with a total CL of $2000. Or 3 cards at $100,000. It's what is reported util wise when statements cuts and then are reported to the CRA's.

[Anonymous]

What FM said above in that credit limits in and of themselves have no bearing on score is correct.  Another point to make is that DTI also plays no role in Fico scoring.

If eliminating some accounts causes score drops related to utilization increasing, the problem usually isn't the reduced limits (denominator) it's the debt (numerator).  The best course of action to combat that is to keep reported utilization low.

[FireMedic1]

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@Anonymous wrote:

What FM said above in that credit limits in and of themselves have no bearing on score is correct.  Another point to make is that DTI also plays no role in Fico scoring.

If eliminating some accounts causes score drops related to utilization increasing, the problem usually isn't the reduced limits (denominator) it's the debt (numerator).  The best course of action to combat that is to keep reported utilization low.

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+1

[Anonymous]

You can always be added back as an authorized user, and the reduced credit line can increase utilization, but as stated above, reducing the debt is more important than increasing the denominator