Help with mortgage score increase! Update!

[Anonymous]

Hello, I was hoping to get some feedback on how to get theses scores higher to have a mid-score above a 680 in the next 3 months. I have been working on my credit utilization for some time now and did notice my Experian has improved but Trans and Equifax seem to be on a stand still. I can’t seem to get these scores up were I need them to be.

Mortgage scores as of 12/1                                                      

Trans score 4:  668

Equifax score 5:  663

Experian score 2: 740

I do here that paying down its good for score increase, But I am not noticing much of an increase with both Trans and Eq. A few months back I was sitting at around 75% utilization until now at (37%) and Trans has increase from 655>668 (only 13 points) which is my middle score, while Eq 633>663 (30 point increase) and Ex 675>740 a 65-point increase! Why can’t they all increase at the same rate as Experian. Grrr! I still have more to pay down, but I fear with this rate my middle score is not going to make it. I need some advice on what to do.

I currently have 4 CC:

Discover It 3606/4900 Util 47%  (2y)

Khols 1300/3000 Util 43% (3y 11m)

Best Buy 0/1400 Util 0% (2y)

Home Depot 0/500 Util 0% (1y 4m)

Car loan for 2y 2m and have 7 student loans which I started just paying back because they were on deferment totaling to $24,085 my oldest student account is 5 y 2m and newest 1y 9m

Never missed a payment on any of the above accounts.

But my oldest account is a chase auto loan that is closed (7ys, 9m) with several bad payments, I went through some hard time and made a total of 14 X 30d late payments and 1 60day late payment, its horrible but I have been on time ever since, its been 4years and 9months since my last missed payment. I was thinking this is why my score is not increasing but I am not 100% sure since its been so long since my last payment.

I was able to get my credit merge report which states:

All Score 2,4,5

Too many accounts with balances

Length of time accounts/revolving have been established

Fico 2

Ratio of balance to bank revolving to high

Number of accounts with delinquency

Fico 4

Time since most recent account opening is too short

Fico 5

Level of delinquency with accounts

I was thinking a GW to chase but that is my oldest account, not sure what to do, or just continue to pay down my credit cards. Please help.

Thank you   

Update:

I wanted to update on a GW letter reponse I received today, Just not understanding it fully. 

Chase 

"We're not able to accommadate your request for a goodwill adjustment, as under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the information we provide to the credit reporting agencies must accuratley reflect your account activity and status. We confirmed your credit reporting needs updating. On Dec 13, we asked the credit reporting agencies Eq, Ex, Trans, to suppress the late references reported before 2015. Allow 30 days for the credit reporting agencies to make updates." 

Ok what does this mean? thanks 

[Anonymous]

It looks to me like utilization is your greatest opportunity.  Taking it across the 28.9% threshold and 8.9% threshold if you're currently at 37% would more than likely yield you the 30 points you're looking for.

[Anonymous]

Certainly if you could get your derogs removed your scores would go up a lot.  Even if the creditor removed the entire account (and I understand it is your oldest account) the advantage in having a clean report would sharply outweight having your Age of Oldest Account go down.

And yes, the (much older) scoring models used in mortgage lending are far less forgiving with derogs. 

So by all means do get started on your GW letter campaign.

You should also experience some substantial help when your total utilization gets below 28.9%.  If you can get your total util under 8.99% you will get still more help.  The EQ score will respond especially well to having all cards at $0 with the remaining card reporting a small positive balance (TU and EX will also like it).

[Anonymous]

That's good to know, I was really hoping just by bringing my utlization down some more will help. I really hope it does. Thank you

[Anonymous]

Yes I was thinking for a while in writing a GW letter, but wasn't sure how it would effect me since it is my oldest account. I will be starting by GW letter ASAP and hope for a success. I am currently still paying down on my utlization since I know its still high, perhaps by next month ill be at least 28%. 

Thanks you 

[Anonymous]

When it comes to GW letters, the key focus is the "S" on the end of the word "letter."  One letter rarely yields anything other than a "no" response.  Sometimes many letters will result in a ton of unfavorable responses.  The key IMO is to send a ton of them out, which I call the Saturation Technique.  If interested, you can read more about it at the link below.  I can assure you that following what is outlined in the first post of that thread will yield you better GW adjustment odds over simply sending a single letter.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/The-Saturation-Technique-Best-GW-adjustment-o...

[Anonymous]

I see that you are already getting help from contributor Brutal Body Shots.  He knows a huge amount about GW letter campaigns.  Feel free to ask him further for guidance.

As far as your CC balances go, how possible is it for you to get all cards at $0 except one, with the remaining card reporting a small positive balance? 

[Anonymous]

That's great! Thank you again, I will definitely go over the link and start my journey with GW letters

[Anonymous]

I am very happy for all your help and will be going over the GW process, need to start soon. I will am going to do my best to get all credit cards down to 0 except for one with small balance, my goal is 3 months. I have a lot of work to do. Thank you 

[HeavenOhio]

If possible, bring your card balances to AZEO (all zero except one). As CCID describes, that's balances of zero on every card except one. The remaining card should have a small balance ($5, but not much more).

If you can swing AZEO, bring one of the two cards with balances to zero ASAP. There may be a trailing interest charge the following month, which means that it may actually take two statements to achieve a zero balance. Any trailing interest will be a tiny amount that you can pay immediately. Don't charge anything to the card until you see a statement balance of zero.

At the very least, bring each card with a balance down to 27%. That keeps you under the 28.9% threshold once interest is tacked on. Better yet is to pay off one card and go for 7% overall utilization and less than 27% utilization on the card with the remaining balance (keeping you safely under 8.9%/28.9%). Best, of course, is AZEO, which takes unforeseen variables out of the equation.