Hi All ,
I would like to share my experience with you and of course I would like to have your advice for the rest of my experience with the American credit score system. this week i will finish my first year as a resident in the usa, i will quote my numbers for you to advise me: My credit score until today's update is: TU & EQ = 666 and EX 662. I have three credit cards: Chase's Freedom (5k, account opened since April 2017), CapitalOne ($ 600, account opened since August 2017) and Amex Skymiles (5K, account opened since December 2017), also I took a Personal loan since January 2018 from 4K and last week I was approved for a 34k auto loan by BMW.
To be honest with you , I do not pay attention to inquires because I did not know it's going to impact my credit score And today i have : TU (18 INQ), EQ (14 INQ) and EX (16 INQ).
That's my current situation with my credit score.
I would now like to have your advice, what I will do, and what I need to avoid, to improve my credit score and aim for the best possible .
Thanks to All
I would like to share my experience with you and of course I would like to have your advice for the rest of my experience with the American credit score system. this week i will finish my first year as a resident in the usa, i will quote my numbers for you to advise me: My credit score until today's update is: TU & EQ = 666 and EX 662. I have three credit cards: Chase's Freedom (5k, account opened since April 2017), CapitalOne ($ 600, account opened since August 2017) and Amex Skymiles (5K, account opened since December 2017), also I took a Personal loan since January 2018 from 4K and last week I was approved for a 34k auto loan by BMW.
To be honest with you , I do not pay attention to inquires because I did not know it's going to impact my credit score And today i have : TU (18 INQ), EQ (14 INQ) and EX (16 INQ).
That's my current situation with my credit score.
I would now like to have your advice, what I will do, and what I need to avoid, to improve my credit score and aim for the best possible .
Thanks to All
wrote:4 total things here, 3 major and 1 minor. You have direct control over 3 out of 4 of them:
1. On-time payments. Never miss a payment. If you maintain perfect payment history you nail down approximately 1/3 of your FICO score.
2. Low utilization. You mentioned the different credit cards you have and their limits, but did not mention their current balances. Your scores suggest that you may be reporting high utilization. You want to keep your balances low on all of your credit cards, ideally less than 8.9%. As soon as you exceed 8.9% overall utilization, your score drops. This factor comprises roughly another 1/3 of your FICO score and like the first factor is something you have direct control over.
3. Time. This is the one factor you can't control. Letting your accounts age will result in higher scores slow and steady over time.
4. A final factor you can control is how often you're applying for credit. As you admitted in your original post, you have a good amount of inquiries present. Inquiries stop adversely impacting your score once they hit 1 year of age. This means if you go 1 year without apping, you'll have no inquiries negatively impacting your score. Not applying for credit (unless you need it) is a great rule to live by and one that will help your scores grow faster.
I agree with everything BBS said, and would add:
5. Pay your auto loan down as much as you can, but not to zero. Best number for scoring purposes is 9% or less
of the amount of the loan.
6. Make sure you're working with genuine FICO scores.
wrote:
wrote:
thank you very much for your quick response.
So, for the use of my cards, I will always try to pay two cards totally and use the Amex card (sometimes I respect the <8.9%, but sometimes I use this card for 20% but it is rare).
2.I do not think I'll ask for credit for at least the beginning of 2019, but just by asking for a raise of credit limit, I think I'll need some inquiry (especially for Chase's case) .Try to pay those two cards prior to the statement/bill being issued so they report at $0 on your reports. I couldn't tell if you intended to do this so I figured I would mention it. Look for credit limit increases on AMEX (ask for 3x the current limit when the card has aged to 61 days, and 180 days for each request thereafter) and the CapOne card. I wouldn't focus on CLIs on your Chase card, at least for now. This will help you increase limits without more inquiries. Good luck!
Agreed