‘ Short Revolving History ‘ / ‘ Long Credit History ‘

[Anonymous]

Correct. Yes, that's part of the strategy I've been using. Her scores are better than mine because she doesn't have the 2 30-day lates from 4.5 years ago, only me. She also doesn't have student loans. She has quite a bit of room to take on some water and still be at a same or better mortgage tier than me.

You end up chasing your tail to shift the balance to one of the cards where she is primary and then terminating myself as AU. Then you have to think through the what kind of hit you might take by removing that payment history, age and available credit from your profile. ALso, the days of no fee balance transfers are essentially over. Installment loans are a different beast altogether (which is where I'm in a pinch in terms of AWB).

It's a multi-faceted analysis and it IS NOT FUN.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Correct. Yes, that's part of the strategy I've been using. Her scores are better than mine because she doesn't have the 2 30-day lates from 4.5 years ago, only me. She also doesn't have student loans. She has quite a bit of room to take on some water and still be at a same or better mortgage tier than me.

You end up chasing your tail to shift the balance to one of the cards where she is primary and then terminating myself as AU. Then you have to think through the what kind of hit you might take by removing that payment history, age and available credit from your profile. ALso, the days of no fee balance transfers are essentially over. Installment loans are a different beast altogether (which is where I'm in a pinch in terms of AWB).

It's a multi-faceted analysis and it IS NOT FUN.

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@Anonymous typically when you terminate an AU, you don't use lose the age and payment history, just the available credit & debt. 

[Curious_George2]

Hi @Anonymous. I am on the same scorecard as you, with some similarities in our profiles. I have been tracking my scores, including TU4, pretty closely for six months or so, during which time I have made some of the changes you are contemplating (and gained 19 points). I will tell you what I've found. I hope it helps. 

I was getting the penalty for Amount owed on Revolving and/or Open-Ended Accounts when my aggregate balance was $7,879. When I paid it down to $4,684, the reason vanished and I gained 10 points. Some of those points might have come from improved utilization numbers.

When my scorable inquiries dropped from 1 to 0, I gained 2 points, just like you.

I agree with you and Birdman that deciphering Accounts with Balance is frustratingly difficult. I personally believe closed accounts are included in the denominator on the mortgage scores, but that's a tangent. Here's what happened when I have added and subtracted accounts with balances:

If the AWB denominator includes all open and closed accounts...

When I moved from 8/26 (31%) to 6/26 (23%) AWB, I gained 7 points and the AWB reason code vanished. But there was a concurrent reduction in inquiries from 2 to 1, which probably caused some of the point gain.

When I moved from 6/26 (23%) to 7/26 (27%) AWB, I lost 3 points and the AWB reason code appeared. There might have been some offsetting points gained from concurrent positive changes in aging and utilization. FWIW, on TU4's cousin, EX2, I consistently see gain/loss of 5-6 points when my AWB moves up or down by one account.

If the AWB denominator includes only open accounts...

The first underlined part above changes to 8/13 (61%) to 6/13 (46%), and the second underlined part above changes to 6/13 (46%) to 7/13 (54%).

TL;DR: if you can cross an AWB threshold, I expect you will gain somewhere around 5 points.

[Anonymous]

Great point @Anonymous  on the terminated AU comment!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Great point @Anonymous  on the terminated AU comment!

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@Anonymous I think you can do this. @Curious_George2 and I have been banging our heads on the wall over AWB. But I was in that scorecard and I got 6 points for an AWB Threshold & 6 points for an amount owed Threshold, Plus you've got utilization Thresholds, an Individual and an aggregate. 

it's close, but I think you can do it. I love the fact on the same scorecard the same inquiry was also two points for @Curious_George2 !

[Anonymous]

And the AU potentially still counts in the denominator!

[Anonymous]

@Curious_George2 Holy crap that's helpful and specific. You never put too much confidence in a single DP, but your experience tracks perfectly with @Anonymous's wisdom and various other DPs and general experience on here.

if I get to that somewhere-ish <$5k revolver util, I will not only cross and aggregate revolver % util threshold(s) but also an individual revolver % util threshold(s). All of my revolver util is on a single card.

When you went from $7,879 to $4,864, was that balance on only a single card or was it across multiple cards? Just checking to see if it was also a drop in AWB. If it was on a single card, what was the limit on that card? Checking to see if maybe there was an indiv recolver util threshold(s) in addition to aggregate % revolver util.

The AWB DPs you gave are very interesting because data there is scarce. I really feel moderately confident that all accounts (open + closed) count on mortgage scores. There was a working theory that 40% is potentially  a threshold as is 60% (potentially). If if I could expand on that theory, I'll throw out a hypothesis that it could be smaller points at some, or all 5% increments. That would support your improvements when you crossed 25% and 30%. Could be 3 points at 30% and another 3 points at 25% with the other point being for the inquiries going from 2 to 1.

I'll admit, it's a stretch.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

@Curious_George2 Holy crap that's helpful and specific. You never put too much confidence in a single DP, but your experience tracks perfectly with @Anonymous's wisdom and various other DPs and general experience on here.

if I get to that somewhere-ish <$5k revolver util, I will not only cross and aggregate revolver % util threshold(s) but also an individual revolver % util threshold(s). All of my revolver util is on a single card.

When you went from $7,879 to $4,864, was that balance on only a single card or was it across multiple cards? Just checking to see if it was also a drop in AWB. If it was on a single card, what was the limit on that card? Checking to see if maybe there was an indiv recolver util threshold(s) in addition to aggregate % revolver util.

The AWB DPs you gave are very interesting because data there is scarce. I really feel moderately confident that all accounts (open + closed) count on mortgage scores. There was a working theory that 40% is potentially  a threshold as is 60% (potentially). If if I could expand on that theory, I'll throw out a hypothesis that it could be smaller points at some, or all 5% increments. That would support your improvements when you crossed 25% and 30%. Could be 3 points at 30% and another 3 points at 25% with the other point being for the inquiries going from 2 to 1.

I'll admit, it's a stretch.

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@Anonymous i'm telling you, I crossed the amount owed Threshold a couple times for 6 points every time and I crossed the AWB threshold a couple times for 6 points every time.

This wasn't a one time event. Even had the code disappear, so I know what it was from. And that's when I was still on the new accounts Scorecard. This was without implicating Utilization. 

Utilization would be added gravy and you've got a shot at an Individual and an Aggregate one. if you can't get 8 points out of the combination of an individual and aggregate threshold, I'd be surprised. But I was surprised by that 2-point inquiry. 

right now I'm trying to figure out EX2 AWB thresholds. I was trying to do all three at one time, but life got so hectic I fell behind.  I don't know if I can catch up, Ive got to go back and look at the data. @Curious_George2 has some awesome datapoints!

[Anonymous]

I probably have some DPs for EX2 over the past 2 weeks.

So when you are saying the 6 points is isolated, what do you propose as potential candidates for the threshold or thresholds? Seems like @Curious_George2 saw the exact same 6 points and he hopped back and forth across 25%. I'll have to go back and look and your post from yesterday where you gave some numbers.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I probably have some DPs for EX2 over the past 2 weeks.

So when you are saying the 6 points is isolated, what do you propose as potential candidates for the threshold or thresholds? Seems like @Curious_George2 saw the exact same 6 points and he hopped back and forth across 25%. I'll have to go back and look and your post from yesterday where you gave some numbers.

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@Anonymous to be honest @Curious_George2 May remember better than I do, but I remember it seeming the lowest was around 25 or 30. Then maybe one at 40 as well, but again not knowing how it counts it and plus I was going by alerts I'm not 100% sure what my numbers were because life got hectic. 

but the balance I think I narrowed down to somewhere between $4550 - $5500. 

so while I can't say exactly where the AWB threshold is, it should be worth six points on that Scorecard, as should be the balance threshold. But who knows if you can reach that but you can reach the balance and the utilization thresholds. Hopefully.