Understanding Re-Bucketing...

[haulingthescoreup]

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@ChrisGA43 wrote:

.... But depending on which bucket a person is in, it seems(from other forum contributors posts) it might very well take longer to correct a droppage.

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Despite what you're going to read around here, util is immediately reverseable. If you used to have 7%, and then you had 35%, and then you had 7% again, you're going back to the same score, all other things being equal.

The problem is that all other things never remain equal. Reports aren't static, they're always shifting around here, there and elsewhere, with accounts and lates having birthdays, greater or fewer accounts with balances, changes in CL's, you name it. And possibly re-bucketing. And it takes an awful lot of time (time that normal people would spend on other pursuits) to get a feel for what these things are and know what to look for. Thus the groans when people don't return to the same point.

But you're not going to get re-bucketed for changes in util. I think the FICO servers would melt if that were a criterion.


edit to add: OK, as soon as I hit "submit post", I thought of a semi-exception. If you are re-bucketed for some other reason while your util is hopping around, that util might be rewarded or punished differently in your new bucket. So when I went from 18 years to 19 years in June and changed buckets, my 8% util changed from being a positive to a negative. In July, when it had dropped from 8% to 7%, it became a positive again. So different buckets have different standards for what's OK in util.

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 07-10-2008 09:41 AM

[My2cents]

Hello Fico Forumers.  I think that I have found the rebucket ceiling for my group.  I have been stuck at 662 +/- 5 points for 6 months.  I have low utils on 5 cards 5%, and I have done almost everything that I could to get to 700.  Even a new card with 5k CL, however the ch13 may have me stuck. I also had a weird inq to drop off a few days ago.  This inq gave me 5pts when it first appeared 6 months ago.  I dont quite understand or is it that things now these days really do cost more than 2 cents

[Anonymous]

The old 666 bucket-

I heard the 99 Cent store is raising their prices-

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My2cents wrote:

Hello Fico Forumers.  I think that I have found the rebucket ceiling for my group.  I have been stuck at 662 +/- 5 points for 6 months.  I have low utils on 5 cards 5%, and I have done almost everything that I could to get to 700.  Even a new card with 5k CL, however the ch13 may have me stuck. I also had a weird inq to drop off a few days ago.  This inq gave me 5pts when it first appeared 6 months ago.  I dont quite understand or is it that things now these days really do cost more than 2 cents

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[Anonymous]

If your bankrupcy is still on the report I doubt you were rebucketed - that public record is going to keep you in a bucket until it comes off.

As for the other posters thinking that util changes your bucket that is incorrect. Major lates, collections, public records, total age and average age/new credit, and possibly changing from a thin file to a thick file are what cause a rebucketing.

I spend a lot of time thinking about buckets in relation to FICO scores, but the truth is people on this board focus on it too much at times. The vast majority of changes to our FICO scores are not from bucket changes. The same good credit behavior we recommend will do you well no matter what bucket you are in. I just personally find trying to unravel the mystery behind the buckets fascinating.

[Lucid08]

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debtisgood wrote:

......I spend a lot of time thinking about buckets in relation to FICO scores, but the truth is people on this board focus on it too much at times. The vast majority of changes to our FICO scores are not from bucket changes. The same good credit behavior we recommend will do you well no matter what bucket you are in. I just personally find trying to unravel the mystery behind the buckets fascinating.

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And that's exactly why someone like myself is so interested in these buckets.

I started building my credit file from ground zero last October. No credit, no score, nada. I'm approaching my one year mark on my oldest installment account and I have a single medical CA that is due to drop off around November. Since Oct. of '07 I've managed to get 3 CC's(NFCU Visa and MC, and an Orchard Card), a co-signed motorcycle loan, and 2 other small installment loans. I've not missed a single payment on anything and my score with EQ at last check was 653. Using the FICO score simulator my score will be somewhere around 690-710 in another years time if I pay all of my CC's on time. That's not bad! But from what I'm reading and understanding about these buckets, when my only CA drops off in Nov I might be facing a slight decrease in score due to a re-bucketing due to having no baddies.

That's the reason I'm trying to understand these dratted buckets..heheh...because if I can know when it's coming, I'd like to be golden with Utilization as low as possible to prevent a rebucketing wollop from what I'm hearing.

Edited to reflect correct EQ score.

Message Edited by Lucid08 on 09-13-2008 01:29 AM

Message Edited by Lucid08 on 09-13-2008 01:30 AM

[haulingthescoreup]

What we know about the buckets is that pre-FICO 08 (which is what we're still operating in), there are 10 buckets: 2 negative and 8 positive. The make-up of them really is a closely-held secret, but we all theorize like mad.

Here's my current guess, which could very well change tomorrow. And on the ages, those are really guesses:

Negative 1: presence of BK
Negative 2: presence of serious derog: 90-day* late or worse, charge-off, collection, judgment, public record.

*a 60-day late is a major derog for 2 years, and it would put you in this bucket during this time, but then it carries the weight of a minor derog.

Positive 1: history less than 2 years (maybe these can be either AAoA or longest)
Positive 2: history of 2 - 4 years 11 months
Positive 3: history of 5 - 7 years 11 months
Positive 4: history of 8 - 11 years 11 months
Positive 5: history of 12 - 17 years 11 months (although I think we saw evidence for 13)
Positive 6: history of 19 years or longer
Positive 7: thin file??
Positive 8: more than X new accounts within the past X months??

***edit to add: nah. Forgot about the clean history bucket and another one that I've already forgotten. It appears that there are too many history buckets up there.***

For the AAoA vs longest bit, maybe the history buckets ARE driven solely by longest, and if you have a low AAoA in a long-history bucket, you get spanked hard. Whereas if you're in a shorter-history bucket, if your AAoA is relatively high, you get smiles.

And within each history-driven bucket, other factors such as 30-day lates, older 60's, util, new accounts, inqs, etc. can influence scores.

Util does NOT drive bucket assignment. It just affects the scores that you have in your bucket.

It still doesn't help me in my dilemma, where I have a 90, but I also have a very old account. And my score watch alert resulting from adding that old account was quite clear that I had been re-bucketed due to age, even though that 90 is still there.

So does this mean that sometimes one factor trumps another and moves you out of a legitimate bucket into an equally legit bucket? Just dunno.

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 09-13-2008 10:27 AM

[Anonymous]

We will find out about that 11 to 12 breakline-

As I will drop from a 12 year oldest to the 11 year oldest account for Oct and Nov then back to 12 years in Dec.

[Anonymous]

I also believe public records (BK judgments, liens) are all on the same bucket-

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I also believe public records (BK judgments, liens) are all on the same bucket-

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I did, too, and then I read otherwise.

So I cheerfully accept any countering opinions!