When to check mortgage FICO

[Anonymous]

Ok so I am working to rebuild my credit to hit the magic 620 score to pre qualify for a mortgage.  My fiance's credit is 750+ and our combined salary is $150+.  When I first signed up for myFICO.com, my credit scores were the following:

EQ 8:  622   EQ 568

TU 8:   632. TU  580

EX 8:   596. EX. 540

Now my FICO 8 scores are:

EQ 8: 637
TU 8: 620
EX 8: 618

I am slowly climbing but my question is, as my 8s are growing, at what point should I recheck my mortgage scores?

[Anonymous]

That's a good question.  

The fact that you are slowly climbing and that your scores are still low suggests to me that you have something substantial wrong with your reports.  Either you have serious derogs or very high CC utilization.  There's very active steps you can take to solve both of those, and it may be better to re-evaluate your rebuilding strategy rather than to hope for time take care of it.

One option might to open a DCU account, which gives a free monthly FICO mortgage score.  That might give you a monthly idea of where you are.

https://www.dcu.org/account-services/FICO.html

Then you could pull your mortgage scores every six months at myFICO.  That would cost $60 per year total.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

That's a good question.  

The fact that you are slowly climbing and that your scores are still low suggests to me that you have something substantial wrong with your reports.  Either you have serious derogs or very high CC utilization.  There's very active steps you can take to solve both of those, and it may be better to re-evaluate your rebuilding strategy rather than to hope for time take care of it.

One option might to open a DCU account, which gives a free monthly FICO mortgage score.  That might give you a monthly idea of where you are.

https://www.dcu.org/account-services/FICO.html

Then you could pull your mortgage scores every six months at myFICO.  That would cost $60 per year total.

---

To be fair he signed up the last week of February.

[Anonymous]

Ha yes.  These improvements in score are since mid February.

I have 0 collections. I recently consolidated my student loans.  The paid off loans have reported to 2 out of 3.  The new consolidated loan has not reported yet.

I have 1 $500 secured card that has a $9 balance.

I have 2 new cards ($3000 and $5000), neither have reported yet.

Per the advice of a credit counselor, i also have a $1000 secured loan.  Has not reported yet.

I'm hoping when all of this reports as well as a payment or two, I could be over the magic number of 620.  but again, since I don't get real time updates on mortgage, I'm in the dark.  

[Anonymous]

That's really funny.  If a guys tells me that, since he started a diet, he's been slowly losing weight, it's not going to occur to me that he only started his diet two days ago.  I am going to assume he's been on this diet for many months, or even years.

There's no way to reliably infer what your mortgage scores are from your FICO 8 scores, given the incredibly short time you have been at this.  My advice to people is to first work on making changes to their profiles (altering CC balances, getting an SS loan, removing derogs, etc.) -- all while using free tools to monitor their reports plus possibly something like the $1 trial with Credit Check Total to get their FICO 8s.  Only when they have their reports exactly how they want should they pull their mortgage scores -- precisely because it costs them money to do that.

My guess is that the right fit for you (given your desire to spend money each month on the myFICO monitoring products but also to see frequent updates of your mortgage scores) is the myFICO product called "Premier."  It gives you all of your scores (including mortgage) every 30 days.  My guess is that you have the "Ultimate" product which gives your mortgage scores every 90 days.

[jamie123]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Ha yes.  These improvements in score are since mid February.

I have 0 collections. I recently consolidated my student loans.  The paid off loans have reported to 2 out of 3.  The new consolidated loan has not reported yet.

I have 1 $500 secured card that has a $9 balance.

I have 2 new cards ($3000 and $5000), neither have reported yet.

Per the advice of a credit counselor, i also have a $1000 secured loan.  Has not reported yet.

I'm hoping when all of this reports as well as a payment or two, I could be over the magic number of 620.  but again, since I don't get real time updates on mortgage, I'm in the dark.  

---

You are doing everything right. Very good job!

How much of a hurry are you to get quality mortgage scores?

Your scores will start to climb month to month as long as you pay all your bills on time. I could envision your scores being over 700 a year from now if not sooner.

Before pulling mortgage scores you want to "groom" your profile. You want one card reporting a balance that is less than 10% of its credit line and all the rest reporting $0.

Don't apply for any more credit if you are planning on apping for a mortgage. You have nothing to gain but everything to lose in doing so.

EDIT: The earliest I would check your mortgage scores is 1 month after all your new accounts report to the credit bureaus. Your scores will be pretty volatile for the next year with all the new credit but your scores will keep climbing.

[Anonymous]

I am hoping to buy a home sometime this summer.  I'm getting impatient but I guess I will take your advice and wait it out.  Thanks to everyone for your responses.  I will get there eventually