Score dropped 28 points! (here's why...but why did this happen??)

[Anonymous]

One last thing, you said capital one cards, plural. You can use as many cards as you want but make sure only one reports a balance. How many open accounts do you have? And how many open credit cards do you have?

[Anonymous]

Okay, that makes sense. Will follow that. 

I have 4 cc accounts, my husband has 3. We have an auto loan that's still open and a mortgage (that only reports on his). That's it.

We both have a Cap One card (different accounts that we are both AU on). I was going to charge on mine and leave a small balance and he was going to charge on his and leave a small balance. Should we just leave a small balance on one of those each month instead of 2 (his and mine)
Even though one is mine and one is his, since we are both AU on each other's, both Cap One cards accounts show on each of our reports. (so that would be 2 balances then...I'm guessing from what you've said, since they are on both reports, leave a small balance on only one)

[Anonymous]

That’s actually a excellent question to which I do not know the answer. However I am consulting someone more experienced, so hopefully he will chime in or maybe another member knows?

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Okay, that makes sense. Will follow that. 

I have 4 cc accounts, my husband has 3. We have an auto loan that's still open and a mortgage (that only reports on his). That's it.

We both have a Cap One card (different accounts that we are both AU on). I was going to charge on mine and leave a small balance and he was going to charge on his and leave a small balance. Should we just leave a small balance on one of those each month instead of 2 (his and mine)
Even though one is mine and one is his, since we are both AU on each other's, both Cap One cards accounts show on each of our reports. (so that would be 2 balances then...I'm guessing from what you've said, since they are on both reports, leave a small balance on only one)

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When we're talking mortgage scoring all AU's count full monty, it wasn't until FICO 8 that there was an anti-abuse algorithm put in place for AU's, and we're not quite sure what it is so basically an AU has to be tested on that algorithm... but 99.99% of the mortgages in the US are underwritten on the earlier models.

If you're dead set on putting it on the Cap 1 cards for your balance, then yes, only one one of your two cards... but I wouldn't leave anything like at all to chance: for me AU's, Retail cards, and CU cards are all sub-optimal: use an individual national bank card for both of you, but if you have no other choice then yes only on a single Cap 1.

Me being me, I'd triple check with a full 3B pull to look at the mortgage scores if you went with that AZ + AU balance on one of your files though, that's me but mortgages are not to be left to chance when it comes to scoring imo.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Rev! Yeah that’s simple, do you each have a national bank card that the other is not an AU on? Or are you on all his cards and he’s on all yours? I forgot about the CL... hey Rev, what’s the cut off for credit limit on the mortgage models? I couldn’t remember

[Anonymous]

OK I’m pretty sure it excludes cards 35,000 and higher for CL. But you don’t want to use the credit union card either. So do you each have a national bank card that the other is not an AU on?

If not, the only way to find out is to test and see which one gives you the higher score. Personally I only got one point less with my credit union card, but it’s an unknown unless you test it and then pull it to see.

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks Rev! Yeah that’s simple, do you each have a national bank card that the other is not an AU on? Or are you on all his cards and he’s on all yours? I forgot about the CL... hey Rev, what’s the cut off for credit limit on the mortgage models? I couldn’t remember

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We believe it's just under 30k though with how FICO rounds it might be 28.9; someone did a test recently need to go find it.  After I get the AOYA 3 month datapoint I'm going to let only a balance report on my Marriot card at 30k and see what I get on EX FICO 2.

Also EQ FICO 5/TU FICO 4 might be different but I think TT showed that to be 35k, we just have better data around EX FICO 2 with EX CW now.

I do know personally a 25k CL works.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Revelate! 

Okay, so we have this....NFCU, Discover and Cap One. Which is the best to use? (obvi not the NFCU because you already mentioned that)
So Discover or Cap One?

We each have separate accounts for all 3 of those actually. 

Can you expand on this so I am sure I'm understanding you?
"I'd triple check with a full 3B pull to look at the mortgage scores if you went with that AZ + AU balance on one of your files though."

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Okay, so he is an AU on my Discover (I've had it longer) and I am NOT a AU on his Discover but we are both AU on each other's Cap One's.  (I only made us AU on each other's because I thought that was a good thing to do...darn!)

[Anonymous]

Birdman,

When we were using mainly our Cap One cards (before the NFCU cards at the beginning of this year...Jan) our scores were higher. (everything was 800-820+...his are now 795, 796, 788 (score 8)...his were higher than mine originally. I guess I messed up and got those 25k cards thinking they would help with utilization. They bumped him down (not me though?) below 800 and he has yet to rebound)

Our CL are the highest on the CU cards...25k each.  The other are around 6-7K

I thought NFCU was good to have? I also thought a higher limit card would help our utilization. I am so bummed I have seemed to have messed things up. :/