How does Transunion Mort scoring work, I need to boost my mortgage score asap

[Anonymous]

I have been approved for a home loan in October of 2016 for a new construction, so closing will take some time. I have been watching my scores religiously due to the fact the house won’t be complete for a long time and I know my UW will pull my credit again. I received a notification from Myfico in December that a collection account has been reported on my credit, this was a collection from years ago but of course the CA reported the dates they received the loan and dropped all my scores from 14 to 17 points, I didn’t get a chance to check my mortgage score but I was sure if the fico 8 dropped mortgage did as well. Fast forward to 2017 I was trying to figure how could I gain those points back fast so I was added as an authorized user on a credit card, sure enough when they reported the low balance of like 1% util  my fico 8 scores all went back up almost ranging the same points that I lost. Well Myfico refreshed my reports on 2/1 so I was able to see my updated mortgage scores, they all went down and did not go back up. My mid score is now 617 a few points away from score that allows mortgage approval. My lender will actually pull another report this month and a final soft pull in may once I’m ready to close. I am now in a panic bc my scores are lower than when they provided the approval. Does anyone know what I can expect and how can I get my scores up in a hurry. I have another credit card with 2300 limit I usually keep a balance around 430 to 450.00, will paying this balance down below 10% as well as the card Im authorize user on give me some point gain? I should also mention I paid off an installment loan in December as well and my fico 8 scores actually went up as well again not sure how this affected my mortgage scores bc I didn’t check them, I also advised the UW assistant about the new collection and she brushed it off and told me they see this all the time it may not have effected anything but I now know it did and she also said we will deal with it when we repull in Feb which is now. Just need some guidance as I have invested a lot of upfront cost on this new home.

[Anonymous]

Hey Deloria!  Welcome to the forums.

Here are my thoughts.  Hope they are of some help.

For the future, I am gonna suggest something that will help people read your posts more easily and therefore it will help you get more responses.  And that is to work on what you want to say in a little word processing program like Wordpad.  Try breaking your post into the big ideas or "beats" and put them in separate paragraphs.  Your post as written was a huge long wall of text, and a lot of people won't spend the effort to go through it all.  Paragraphs make that a lot easier.  Once you have got your post exactly the way you want it, then you can paste it into the forum page.

We don't know how many credit cards you have and how much money you currently owe.  But in a way we don't need to.  The answer for how to optimize your credit cards in preparation for a mortgage is always the same, which I will give now:

OPTIMIZING YOUR CC BALANCES

* Pay all your cards down to $0 except one.

* The one remaining card with the positive balance should be:

         (1) A card in your name (not an AU card)

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

         (3) A card with a balance of at least $5 but which is otherwise small (e.g. $10-20)

         (4) A card that has a credit limit of < 29k

The advice you got about not concerning yourself over the collection is not good.  Collections have a big effect on the old mortgage scoring models.  You should be trying to get any any all derogs removed if you can.  A contributor named Brutal Body Shots might be able to help you.  You may want to send him a private message and direct him to this thread. 

On the other hand, given your timeline, there may be nothing you can do about it -- derog removal typically takes several months.  Even getting the CC balances updated with the three credit bureaus can take a good 40 days.  It sounds like your lender wants to do a repull in a couple weeks.

Best wishes...