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Yeah you are right. Alliant locks you out of the amount window.
Finally got Transunion datapoints, mirrored EQ as expected.
+1 scorable inquiry from mortgage inquiries falling out of grace period (moral of story have poop in group when mortgage shopping).
60% to 9% installment utilization
FICO 8: +20 to 730
FICO 04: -9 to 722
Source: 3B monitoring for FICO 8, pair of recent mortgage pulls for TU.
@Revelate wrote:Finally got Transunion datapoints, mirrored EQ as expected.
+1 scorable inquiry from mortgage inquiries falling out of grace period (moral of story have poop in group when mortgage shopping).
60% to 9% installment utilization
FICO 8: +20 to 730
FICO 04: -9 to 722
Source: 3B monitoring for FICO 8, pair of recent mortgage pulls for TU.
Are you saying that your TU FICO 04 dropped 9 points by paying the loans down?
@jamie123 wrote:
@Revelate wrote:Finally got Transunion datapoints, mirrored EQ as expected.
+1 scorable inquiry from mortgage inquiries falling out of grace period (moral of story have poop in group when mortgage shopping).
60% to 9% installment utilization
FICO 8: +20 to 730
FICO 04: -9 to 722
Source: 3B monitoring for FICO 8, pair of recent mortgage pulls for TU.
Are you saying that your TU FICO 04 dropped 9 points by paying the loans down?
No, it dropped because of the inquiry.
FICO 04 may skip installment utilization altogether; it's been flatly ignored on every 04 score I have access to including EX Bankcard 04. I dropped on every 04 model during this test post inquiries, whereas I gained on every FICO 8 and FICO 98 model even with the inquiry.
@jamie123 wrote:Not that you are long winded or anything Rev...
...Are you theorizing that the installment loan "sweet spot" is reached when the aggregate of installment loan remaining balance to starting balance ratio reaches 66%?
I tend to agree with that argument. From what I've learned, EQ seems to reach the "sweet spot" a little earlier than EX and TU. EQ seems to reach the "sweet spot" at around 80% as we saw in the thread a few days ago where that woman (Abby3) hit an 850 EQ with 3 (20%) years of her 15 year mortgage paid off. Her other scores at the time were EX 848 and TU 837. All of her reports had the same information, it is just that the CRAs treat installment pay off ratios a bit differently. I am surmising that your theory would work out in Abby3's case. When she gets her mortgage to 66% remaining balance (Or around 5 years paid off.) all her scores will be at 850.
You just demonstrated that your theory worked in your case, (Good job by the way!) so you are definitely on to something.
I'll see if I can test this but I'm not sure that I can. My 2 year loan is coming up on 50% and my 4 year loan will be at 75% soon so I guess I'm right at the cusp. I guess I'll have to fork out the $60 to pull the 3 reports to get a before shot this weekend. Then I'll pay down my 4 year loan to show a $300/$500 balance. Unfortunately the CU doesn't report until about the 4th day of the month so we won't find out for a while.
Hmm...Now you've got me thinking...
My EQ 08 score had a 10 point bump at the start of April that I attributed to my Discover card turning 1 year old but it might be because my installment loans hit the 80% threshold. I'll have to go back and do the math on what the balance ratio was at that time.
Well, I'm pretty close on my auto/moto loans but my mtg is still in the high 80's. With that being said, after my 18 month app break, I should see if I can break the 80's and maybe pay that down a bit to under 70. I don't believe there's any hope for me as far as my auto loan. I will be trading in my 2014 in about 18 months for another but do plan on keeping that for quite some time. Even putting 10k down, will not make much of a difference. I guess doubling up on some pymts could help? I seriously want to get to that 850 mark across the board. I'm utilizing my time in the garden furnishing my house and putting in landscaping. You guys are doing an awesome job. I'm very grateful. I now have a handle of what I need to do to achieve my goals.
@Anonymous wrote:
@jamie123 wrote:Not that you are long winded or anything Rev...
...Are you theorizing that the installment loan "sweet spot" is reached when the aggregate of installment loan remaining balance to starting balance ratio reaches 66%?
I tend to agree with that argument. From what I've learned, EQ seems to reach the "sweet spot" a little earlier than EX and TU. EQ seems to reach the "sweet spot" at around 80% as we saw in the thread a few days ago where that woman (Abby3) hit an 850 EQ with 3 (20%) years of her 15 year mortgage paid off. Her other scores at the time were EX 848 and TU 837. All of her reports had the same information, it is just that the CRAs treat installment pay off ratios a bit differently. I am surmising that your theory would work out in Abby3's case. When she gets her mortgage to 66% remaining balance (Or around 5 years paid off.) all her scores will be at 850.
You just demonstrated that your theory worked in your case, (Good job by the way!) so you are definitely on to something.
I'll see if I can test this but I'm not sure that I can. My 2 year loan is coming up on 50% and my 4 year loan will be at 75% soon so I guess I'm right at the cusp. I guess I'll have to fork out the $60 to pull the 3 reports to get a before shot this weekend. Then I'll pay down my 4 year loan to show a $300/$500 balance. Unfortunately the CU doesn't report until about the 4th day of the month so we won't find out for a while.
Hmm...Now you've got me thinking...
My EQ 08 score had a 10 point bump at the start of April that I attributed to my Discover card turning 1 year old but it might be because my installment loans hit the 80% threshold. I'll have to go back and do the math on what the balance ratio was at that time.
Well, I'm pretty close on my auto/moto loans but my mtg is still in the high 80's. With that being said, after my 18 month app break, I should see if I can break the 80's and maybe pay that down a bit to under 70. I don't believe there's any hope for me as far as my auto loan. I will be trading in my 2014 in about 18 months for another but do plan on keeping that for quite some time. Even putting 10k down, will not make much of a difference. I guess doubling up on some pymts could help? I seriously want to get to that 850 mark across the board. I'm utilizing my time in the garden furnishing my house and putting in landscaping. You guys are doing an awesome job. I'm very grateful. I now have a handle of what I need to do to achieve my goals.
![]()
I'll get to see how a brand spanking new mortgage affects my scores; if FICO 8 takes a big tumble (when it never has for adding an account before for me, even when crossing an AAOA boundary it was small) then yeah, sorta hosed.
Regarding the auto loan though, it's not a bad idea financially to take out the most you can at as long of a term as you can, and then simply write the check that you would've used for the downpayment to accelerate your amortization curve. That doesn't even include the potential FICO benefits espoused in this thread.
For you if you want 850, start sitting on your hands credit-wise .
@Revelate wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@jamie123 wrote:Not that you are long winded or anything Rev...
...Are you theorizing that the installment loan "sweet spot" is reached when the aggregate of installment loan remaining balance to starting balance ratio reaches 66%?
I tend to agree with that argument. From what I've learned, EQ seems to reach the "sweet spot" a little earlier than EX and TU. EQ seems to reach the "sweet spot" at around 80% as we saw in the thread a few days ago where that woman (Abby3) hit an 850 EQ with 3 (20%) years of her 15 year mortgage paid off. Her other scores at the time were EX 848 and TU 837. All of her reports had the same information, it is just that the CRAs treat installment pay off ratios a bit differently. I am surmising that your theory would work out in Abby3's case. When she gets her mortgage to 66% remaining balance (Or around 5 years paid off.) all her scores will be at 850.
You just demonstrated that your theory worked in your case, (Good job by the way!) so you are definitely on to something.
I'll see if I can test this but I'm not sure that I can. My 2 year loan is coming up on 50% and my 4 year loan will be at 75% soon so I guess I'm right at the cusp. I guess I'll have to fork out the $60 to pull the 3 reports to get a before shot this weekend. Then I'll pay down my 4 year loan to show a $300/$500 balance. Unfortunately the CU doesn't report until about the 4th day of the month so we won't find out for a while.
Hmm...Now you've got me thinking...
My EQ 08 score had a 10 point bump at the start of April that I attributed to my Discover card turning 1 year old but it might be because my installment loans hit the 80% threshold. I'll have to go back and do the math on what the balance ratio was at that time.
Well, I'm pretty close on my auto/moto loans but my mtg is still in the high 80's. With that being said, after my 18 month app break, I should see if I can break the 80's and maybe pay that down a bit to under 70. I don't believe there's any hope for me as far as my auto loan. I will be trading in my 2014 in about 18 months for another but do plan on keeping that for quite some time. Even putting 10k down, will not make much of a difference. I guess doubling up on some pymts could help? I seriously want to get to that 850 mark across the board. I'm utilizing my time in the garden furnishing my house and putting in landscaping. You guys are doing an awesome job. I'm very grateful. I now have a handle of what I need to do to achieve my goals.
![]()
I'll get to see how a brand spanking new mortgage affects my scores; if FICO 8 takes a big tumble (when it never has for adding an account before for me, even when crossing an AAOA boundary it was small) then yeah, sorta hosed.
Regarding the auto loan though, it's not a bad idea financially to take out the most you can at as long of a term as you can, and then simply write the check that you would've used for the downpayment to accelerate your amortization curve. That doesn't even include the potential FICO benefits espoused in this thread.
For you if you want 850, start sitting on your hands credit-wise
.
To Sandi:
Rev gives excellent advice here. The idea with auto loans is to borrow the most that you can with the smallest down payment but keep the rest of your down payment in reserve. When you make your second loan payment, add the reserved down payment money to that payment. That way you increase the paid off ratio from the starting balance.
And yes, to achieve a perfect 850 it seems to me that you cannot have any fairly new credit on your reports and AAoA needs to be pretty high. If you are chasing 850 you need to set yourself up with good credit cards that you can keep open for life, perhaps get a mortgage and auto loan, then sit back and watch your scores rise for a few years without adding any new credit. It seems that if your oldest account is old enough and your AAoA is high enough you can hit 850.
Even if you don't hit the perfect 850 you might top out in the 830s and that is quite an accomplishment in itself!
To Sandi:
Rev gives excellent advice here. The idea with auto loans is to borrow the most that you can with the smallest down payment but keep the rest of your down payment in reserve. When you make your second loan payment, add the reserved down payment money to that payment. That way you increase the paid off ratio from the starting balance.
Supporting documentation to the above.
Everyone send your kudos to CreditGuyinDixie for posting this in another utlization thread, not me.
http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/Amounts-Owed.aspx
Now I just need to decide if I want to game the system by setting up a secured loan of $10,000 and paying it down to a less than $1000 to game my overall installment utilization
A bit of an update...
I was testing if the break point for extra points on installment loan was 66% remaining balance. It appears to me that my scores have stayed the same with 60.8% remaining aggregate balance. My MyFICO EQ has held steady at 705 and my CK scores have also held steady at 773.
My plan is to pay both (One 2 year and one 4 year) share secured installment loans to just under 50% today to see if that is the break point for extra points. I won't find out if it changes my scores until the first week in August when they report to the CRAs. I don't want to get too close to the loan pay off point at the moment in case it takes longer than anticipated to have the tax liens removed from my EQ and TU reports. I don't want to end up in a situation where the loans get paid off before I app for a mortgage.
And that brings up another point...
When I logged into CK to check my reports today I discovered that a State tax lien for $9K that was filed in 2009 was released. This lien had never appeared on my reports before. On CK it is missing about 1/2 of the information on both the EQ and TU reports. (Half of the fields are empty) It just lists the filed date in 2009, that it is a State tax lien and the release date of May 21, 2015. It did not change my CK score at all and my EQ score here at MyFICO has held steady at 705.
I have a few questions...
1. Would the appearance of a released tax lien lower my score even though the underlying tax lien was never reported?
2. Would the appearance of a released tax lien on my EQ report here at MyFICO trigger a rescoring? I know the other FAKO sites never took these tax liens into account for scoring purposes but I do know it matters with the Big 3. The only change at MyFICO today would be the appearance of this released tax lien.
I am currently working with someone back in my home state where these liens originated to have them removed but don't know all the minor details of what is being done. The person I am working with is 100% legit and it is costing me a pretty penny in negotiating these liens for removal.
A word to the wise...
If you have tax liens on your reports and they aren't actively pursuing you, let the sleeping dogs lie. For the longest time I didn't have the funds to get rid of these liens and they were'nt pursuing me so I just watched them sit on my reports. As soon as I/we made contact about paying/negotiating these liens the floodgates opened. It is not a fun thing to have attorneys after you that have the power of State government behind them.
Once these liens are satisfied and I know how it turns out, I will post the whole story on a thread.
@jamie123 wrote:
I have a few questions...
1. Would the appearance of a released tax lien lower my score even though the underlying tax lien was never reported?
2. Would the appearance of a released tax lien on my EQ report here at MyFICO trigger a rescoring? I know the other FAKO sites never took these tax liens into account for scoring purposes but I do know it matters with the Big 3. The only change at MyFICO today would be the appearance of this released tax lien.
Once these liens are satisfied and I know how it turns out, I will post the whole story on a thread.
We should probably have an entirely new thread on tax liens. I could certainly participate
And just because you have them, doesn't mean you did anything wrong, it might just mean that you and the tax authorities don't agree on something. And BTW, even if they later admit they are wrong, they only have to release the lien, not withdraw it! Sorry, I could get passionate about the subject.
1. As you have more than one, my experience is that after the first one, the additional liens make little to no difference in score on or off.
2. The appearance of a released lien on your EQ or EX report will trigger an alert, TU did no trigger an alert. It did not trigger a rescoring for me on any of the three. You have to watch EQ as they will update the dates and may add to the time that it takes to fall off if you don't push them on the subject.