Urgent: Any advice to quickly improve scores for mortgage, I am very close

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I am not highly optimistic whether there is something I can do, but I figured I would throw my situation out there and see if anyone has any advice.  I am under contract on a house and a couple of weeks ago my middle mortgage score was at 727, but through subscibing through the service on the site it showed me through simulator if I paid down my one credit card $5400 it would move me above a 740.  So Experian and Equifax updated on Sunday and Experian moved me from 729 to 745 (site projected a 15 point movement).  However, Equifax did not move like I needed it to.  It went from 727 to 735 (site projected a 15 point bump).  Transunion has not updated yet but it was my lowest score at 724 and the site projected a 20 point movement.  I am not highly optimistic is going to get there but there is a chance.  The other question and I don't know if there is anything I can do is Transunion has not updated yet.  I looked over about a 4 month period when I had the service and I see Equifax and Experian regularly update on around the same day of the month withing a day of each other for this credit card and Transunion on two of the months updated 2 days later, but on the other 2 months once it updated about 10 days later and the other month it doesn't look like it updated at all.  Is there anything I can do here to force the update?  Do I call the credit card company, Transunion?

If nothing else changes, I need a 5 point bump in Equifax.  We are at the end of the line in terms of getting processing going with a bank and they have to pull my credit and get me in the process really by Friday at the latest.  Is there anything I can do over the next couple of days that might warrant me a small bump? 

By the way, so you know this difference means having to put down 5% less on the house.  The current programs that I am qualified for require 15% down, but if I get above 740 I would only have to put down 10%.  It would really stretch is to come up with that 15% so it would mean a ton to us if I could get to the 740 but I don't know that there is anything I can do at this point.  I appreciate any advice anybody might have.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

To get your new higher scores updated as fast as possible, you probably want something called rapid rescoring:

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/rapid-rescoring-pros-and-cons/

I suggest you search for that phrase here on the forums and also using google so that you can learn more.  If nobody chimes in who has expertise in RR, then start a separate post soliciting advice about it (focusing on RR).

As far as the best way to improve your mortgage scores (in the timeframe you have indicated) you'd want to have all your cards reporting $0 except one, with your total utilization (counting all your credit limits together) at < 8.99%.

I cannot be certain how many credit cards you have, but it sounds like you may have only one.  That is unfortunate, but if so there is nothing that can be done about it at this point.

Can you tell us how many credit cards you have, the amount you owe on each one, and the credit limit on each one?  Armed with that we can help you best.

[Anonymous]

I have 2 credit cards, potentially a third if being an authorized user on a card counts (it is listed on my credit report under revolving accounts so I am assuming it does.  The authorized user account is my mother's card and I have been on it for a long time (roughly about 8 years).  Here are my balances:

1. Wells Fargo: $666 balance, $8000 Credit Limit

2. Capital One: $900 balance, $7500 Credit Limit

3. Discover: $0 balance, $13,900 Credit Limit (This is the card I am an authorized user on)

That being said, I need my score to update on the next couple of days so paying down a balance will probably not work unless the bank is willing to do a rapid rescore.  I know I talked to Chase about this and they told me it is too late in the process to do a rapid rescore.  I can certainly inquire with the other bank, but they might have the same answer.  

Is there anything I can do to push the issue with Transunion to update my score based on the feed that went from Wells Fargo?  The other two agencies already updated on 1/22, but still nothing from Transunion.

[Anonymous]

1) Thank goodness for Mommas of the world 😊
That BIG, aged, beautifully maintained 0 debt load account...Is what even gives you a shot in heck, let alone be anywhere CLOSE... Give Momma a hug😇
Which answers 1 of your questions...
Yes that AU account is calculated in your favor, both in age, total CLs, total & individual debt utilization (hers again is 0 on a fat 13.9k)

As @CGID states if you could get that Cap-1 to zero
Then you'd be beautiful, with just the Wells reporting at $666/$8k on 8.3 which gets rounded up to 9% on that individual account

But your total utilization would then be $666/29.4k or 2.2 rounded up to 3%

That should get you 5 points no doubt

Good Luck

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have 2 credit cards, potentially a third if being an authorized user on a card counts (it is listed on my credit report under revolving accounts so I am assuming it does.  The authorized user account is my mother's card and I have been on it for a long time (roughly about 8 years).  Here are my balances:

1. Wells Fargo: $666 balance, $8000 Credit Limit

2. Capital One: $900 balance, $7500 Credit Limit

3. Discover: $0 balance, $13,900 Credit Limit (This is the card I am an authorized user on)

That being said, I need my score to update on the next couple of days so paying down a balance will probably not work unless the bank is willing to do a rapid rescore.  I know I talked to Chase about this and they told me it is too late in the process to do a rapid rescore.  I can certainly inquire with the other bank, but they might have the same answer.  

Is there anything I can do to push the issue with Transunion to update my score based on the feed that went from Wells Fargo?  The other two agencies already updated on 1/22, but still nothing from Transunion.

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The good news is that the next three calendar days (Wed, Thurs, Fri) are also business days, which certainly improves your chances that by Fri afternoon the balance will have updated at TU.

If you don't get more concrete advice from people with particular expertise in RR or phone-based negotiation with TU, then I would certainly consider giving TU a call this afternoon.  You should go into it with a calm, friendly, and polite approach, always being very courteous and trying to enlist whoever you are speaking with as a sympathetic ally.  Asking to speak with a supervisor is fine as long as it is done in a way that makes it clear that you are all working together -- e.g. "is there a way I could speak with a supervisor?  You have been great, but I am wondering if they might be able to do something that we don't know about."

It sounds like Chase is one possible lender but that there is another alternative lender you are working with, and with whom you have not enlisted as a help with RR.  You should be trying to enlist everyone as possible allies here.

I will bow out at this point since I don't have any experience with this sort of extremely compressed timeframe (e.g. "I need to buy a house in two days... can you help me with my credit?").  Other folks may have more experience with this sort of thing.  Best of luck...

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

Thanks for all the feedback so far.  A few more tidbits of information:

- The other lender is Sun Trust.  My mortgage is agent said she is not sure if we could do a rapid rescore or not.  She said she could try, but typically they are only allowed to do a rapid rescore if it is for something not reporting as accurate on the report and not just paying down a balnce.

- It seems like there is another way to do a rapid rescore where as I could pay a service to do it on my behalf.  Does anyone know of any companies out there that do this?  I tried searching and reading through a bunch of threads on here and most of what I found was having the lender do it on your behalf.  Not sure if that will be an option or not.

- On the TransUnion update to show my paid down balance I did on Wells Fargo I am hoping that might do the trick but I am not counting on it.  The one lender I talked to said typically TransUnion is always the lowest score and for me it was before I paid down Wells Fargo so I'm thinking I'm not going to see the bump out of Trans Union I need.

I'm certainly going to push on Trans Union but it seems like paying down the Capital One to 0 and a rapid rescore might be my only hope.  If anyone knows of any rapid rescore services, please do share.

Finally, yes it looks like my mom's credit card thing I did like 8 years ago could be my savior.  It has a 30 year old account that she always pays down to a 0 balance.  Just to give you my quick story, my middle credit score was at 652 about 6 months ago.  I paid down the credit cards, got three 30 day lates deleted off of my file and got a collection account completely erased and that got me to here.  I think I've done as much I can do, now I just need that last little push to get me to 740.  Unfortunately, I only have a few days to get it done.

[Anonymous]

Given your extreme time urgency (with which I sympathize) I encourage you to send a private message to Revelate and to RobertEG.  Explain very briefly that you are in a terrible bind as far as time and give them the link to this thread.  They may be willing to help or to forward your concern on to someone else.

Be very clear but also brief in your PM -- you need the assistance of anyone with experience in RR as fast as possible.  Ideally this afternoon.

Also feel free to start a separate thread that has a very brief focused initial paragraph and a subject line like "Rapid Rescoring -- need urgent help now".

It sounds like you are doing searches about RR here on the forum.  Good.  But don't limit yourslef to that.  Use google too.  You are correctly seeing that you need to learn everything possible that you can about RR.

You write:

"The one lender I talked to said typically TransUnion is always the lowest score."

That is a silly thing to say.  Sadly lender reps often know almost nothing about scoring.  A person can have EQ or EX as his lowest score with TU being his highest -- that's not especially rare.  If your lender reps knew more they would have advised you better (e.g. to have all cards at $0 except one true CC that is in your name, with that card showing a balance of $20 say).  If they had advised you better you would not be in this pickle now.

[Anonymous]

Sadly, @CreditGuy is ALL to correct when it comes to lender reps
Car dealerships
Realtors
In general, many of these ppl focus on other aspects of thier profession (not knocking em totally, I get it many balls in the air& lots to do...Finding clients, closing deals, prospecting, keep up with business trends, laws regs etc) the problem is the public too often relies too heavily on what many of these people THINK or FEEL like
" TU is USUALLY the lowest one"
That 'sounds' like a proclamation from a Professional, if one didn't know any better... When really it's the type of gibberish spoken by a hand in sand busy bee's worker just getting it done in triage.

When ppl in sales "learn" or only deal in 'war-zone' tactics to get it done, to stop the bleeding and get the solider out of harm's way...They many times cut off toes that could have been saved but they know no better and when they speak, they many times can only think and act in terms of getting it DONE not necessarily in the best manner.

Again, their FOCUS is much different, so I don't blame them other than them making seem that things are absolute

However the above statement is just beyond idiotic
Even something like..
Geographical issues can and do strongly affect which CRA is pull more or less often, which turn would mean just in general living the Midwest vs the Southeast could render one bureau a go to whereas a person in CA would have a different "feeling" about which CRA is 'their' particular low score

But a pro of any sort, should be experienced enough NOT to say something so silly in today's modern world where vendors are all over the place and Ma and Pa move off the farm and may have lived in different states and so many different things...Just mind logging that these ppl try to come off as knowledgeable and wind up miseducating ppl who then miseducating the entire neighborhood errr

[Revelate]

Ask in the mortgage board regarding rapid rescore; a lot of lenders anecdotally will do a RR for things like balance changes even.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

To get your new higher scores updated as fast as possible, you probably want something called rapid rescoring:

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/rapid-rescoring-pros-and-cons/

I suggest you search for that phrase here on the forums and also using google so that you can learn more.  If nobody chimes in who has expertise in RR, then start a separate post soliciting advice about it (focusing on RR).

As far as the best way to improve your mortgage scores (in the timeframe you have indicated) you'd want to have all your cards reporting $0 except one, with your total utilization (counting all your credit limits together) at < 8.99%.

I cannot be certain how many credit cards you have, but it sounds like you may have only one.  That is unfortunate, but if so there is nothing that can be done about it at this point.

Can you tell us how many credit cards you have, the amount you owe on each one, and the credit limit on each one?  Armed with that we can help you best.

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question:  so for every month that is reported with $0 except one, does the mortgage score go up?  Its cool if its one month, but I am hoping it goes up a few months monthly with this strategy?  When I get ready to lock, I know they will run my credit again, so I am trying to estimate how many points over what i started with I will be.  Thanks!