Lost 19 points out of no where

[tooleman694]

We are in the proccess of building a new home, we will be closing in May. Lender pulled me to get preapproval, scores were fine however they did all take a 20 point drop because of a medical emergency and I took out a care credit card in Oct not to dig into our down payment savings. Was not an issue with the mortgage lender, everything still in range.

Then bam last week I was looking at my EX report and my mortgage score I took a 19 point drop. I crossed referenced everything from the report I took the day before and nothing had changed at all. BTW I also use the EX credit monitoring, I can get all my scores and reports daily with their product, but only EX.

The only thing I could figure out, was that the morgage lender pulled me 6 weeks before. Could it be the INQ that knocked me down 6 weeks later?

I went and I pulled my 3B this morning and my EQ stayed the same, but my TU actually went up 9 points. Scores for EQ and TU are still above 640. 

EQ 671 and TU 654 for my mortgage scores.

I am currently sitting at 53 percent total util.

I am wondering, Jan 1st when that care credit goes to 3 months, I should get some points back right? And that INQ from the mortgage pull probably hit my score.

Good news is that I have 2 INQs on my EX that are going to age 12 months in Jan, hopefully that helps too.

[Remedios]

@tooleman694  your identical thread posted in Mortgage Loans has been removed. 

Please avoid cross posting.

Thank you 

[SouthJamaica]

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@tooleman694 wrote:

We are in the proccess of building a new home, we will be closing in May. Lender pulled me to get preapproval, scores were fine however they did all take a 20 point drop because of a medical emergency and I took out a care credit card in Oct not to dig into our down payment savings. Was not an issue with the mortgage lender, everything still in range.

Then bam last week I was looking at my EX report and my mortgage score I took a 19 point drop. I crossed referenced everything from the report I took the day before and nothing had changed at all. BTW I also use the EX credit monitoring, I can get all my scores and reports daily with their product, but only EX.

The only thing I could figure out, was that the morgage lender pulled me 6 weeks before. Could it be the INQ that knocked me down 6 weeks later?

I went and I pulled my 3B this morning and my EQ stayed the same, but my TU actually went up 9 points. Scores for EQ and TU are still above 640. 

EQ 671 and TU 654 for my mortgage scores.

I am currently sitting at 53 percent total util.

I am wondering, Jan 1st when that care credit goes to 3 months, I should get some points back right? And that INQ from the mortgage pull probably hit my score.

Good news is that I have 2 INQs on my EX that are going to age 12 months in Jan, hopefully that helps too.

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1. Yes the mortgage inquiries' impact on the algorithm is delayed.

2. Additionally, Care Credit cost you (a) an inquiry (b) a reset of your newest account age and (c) a lowering of your average age of accounts. I always advise people to NEVER apply for anything new in the runup to a mortgage application. The mortgage scores are the most sensitive of all to what I call the 'newness' factors.

3. 53% utilization is rough; there's a lot of room for improvement on that.

4. Don't expect anything to fall into your lap at Care Credit crossing 3 months.

5. Inquiries dropping at 12 months may or may not add points, because inquiries are binned.

[Anonymous]

I agree with SJ. And the newness factor lasts the longest on the mortgage Scores.

The mortgage inquiry is delayed 30 days to the day for the point change, not 6 weeks.

That carecredit card caused the big drop due to scorecard reassignment.

I wouldn’t count on points at 3 months, I would try to get underneath 49.5% utilization to grab some points and hope the inquiries give some.

[Anonymous]

But utilization counts for more on version 8 than it does the mortgage Scores. how many accounts with a balance do you have?

[tooleman694]

I have an update here.

After the new account his 3 months old, my EX went up 6 points. Then that INQ because unscorable and no score change. I do have another INQ on the 20th that is about to become unscorable. However this morning I checked my scores and again out of nowhere 11 point drop on the morgage score.

Meanwhile my EQ score didn't move but my TU jumped about 20 points.

This month I paid off a few cards with low balances, and paid off some huge chunks on others. When they all report I will be under 49 percent Util. With a couple cards sitting at zero. Ill report back when I get the results.

[Anonymous]

The progress on paying your cards should help. I would throw every extra dollar you have at your cards, trying to pay as many to zero as you can. Mortgage scores love zero-balance accounts and the more of yours that are paid off, the better for gaining points.

[Anonymous]

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@tooleman694 wrote:

We are in the proccess of building a new home, we will be closing in May. Lender pulled me to get preapproval, scores were fine however they did all take a 20 point drop because of a medical emergency and I took out a care credit card in Oct not to dig into our down payment savings. Was not an issue with the mortgage lender, everything still in range.

Then bam last week I was looking at my EX report and my mortgage score I took a 19 point drop. I crossed referenced everything from the report I took the day before and nothing had changed at all. BTW I also use the EX credit monitoring, I can get all my scores and reports daily with their product, but only EX.

The only thing I could figure out, was that the morgage lender pulled me 6 weeks before. Could it be the INQ that knocked me down 6 weeks later?

I went and I pulled my 3B this morning and my EQ stayed the same, but my TU actually went up 9 points. Scores for EQ and TU are still above 640. 

EQ 671 and TU 654 for my mortgage scores.

I am currently sitting at 53 percent total util.

I am wondering, Jan 1st when that care credit goes to 3 months, I should get some points back right? And that INQ from the mortgage pull probably hit my score.

Good news is that I have 2 INQs on my EX that are going to age 12 months in Jan, hopefully that helps too.

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Let's be honest withourselves - the "excuses" that FICO and lenders give for what they do have absolutely no bearing on facts. I have been docked points and been declined for such obvious stupidity as "too many recent credit inquiries" when that lender's inquity was the ONLY inquiry in the file, "Credit limit and balances are too close together" with a util of 1% or less and a host more. In addition, FICO scores are a 3-card Monte game that is so stacked against common sense and good money management that is laughable. Imagine this - when I had a car loan and a mortgage that ate up over $1,000 a month inpayments, my scores were well into the 800's. Now I have no mortgage (paid, never late) and no car loan (also paid, never late) FICO rewarded my newfound monthly wealth by taking away almost 100 points!!!! In the mysterious world of FICO you can actually have a better credit score they day before you file bankruptcy than the day after you become debt free.

So what causes a credit score to oscillate like an EKG reading a heart attack? As far as I can see, it could be anything - the phase of the moon, the incoming and outgoing of the tides in the Bay of Fundy, whether your neighbors had a car accident or not , the alignment of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Krypton - anything, especially if it is something that (a) does NOT show up on the credit reports they let you see or (b) is caused by something or someone that you have absolutely no control over.

[Anonymous]

@tooleman694 normally I would think you're missing something on your report, but the fact that several people reported this on the same day really has got me thinking it's a glitch, but I would still advise you to compare the reports and make sure there were no changes whatsoever.