Various FICO Scoring Methods

[CA4Closure]

MY brief background: Foreclosure 2011 but officially closed April 2012. AAoA 4.6 years with the longest history of 17 years with Capital One.

I know foreclosures ding you pretty bad for the first 5-10 years. I have been told as the months pass on my foreclosure will have a lesser impact on my FICO score if I pay my credit cards on time and if I pay more than the minimum required. My foreclosure is the only derogatory on my credit and I have had no auto loan since I paid that off in full in 2010.

So my question is, I have been checking my FICO scores regularly since 2013 and my utilization is always below 5%. Currently I am below .5% ultilization and yet my FICO scores only go up maybe 1-3 points each month or they remain the same. Also, sometimes I get a 10 point drop in my scores for no reason! Ususally this occurs around the hioliday season from November to February.

I pay off my balances each month but leave a balance on my Balance Transfers. I have not applied for a credit card in 7 months (Chevron Visa was my last card I applied for). Even when I carried balances on my cards, my scores didn't improve like what I am seeing here on MyFico posters.

If sources are correct in saying my foreclosure will ding my FICO scores for 7-10 years then my scores won't improve until 2022. This is not fair because I lost my home due to job loss and I could not find a job in my career. I was not a spend thrift but losing my job caused me to max out one or two credit cards. I am currently hoovering on the line between GOOD and VERY GOOD. FICO Score 8 has me at 755.

[Anonymous]

A 10 point drop can happen due to individual account utilization going over 28.9%.

Aggregate utilization is only a piece of the utilization puzzle.

In addition, if you let balances (even $2) report on 1/3 of your credit cards or more, you get a FICO ding for using too many credit cards that cycle.

So report less than 28.9% utilization on any one account, never let 1/3 or more of your cards show balances, and keep your aggregate utilization under 8.9% but over $0.