When will my FICO score go up?

[Anonymous]

I'm waiting to see when my FICO score will rebound from a recent CC opening. I started with a 767 now I'm at a 747 as a result of applying for the new card. It's been about 4 months now and I see no bump in my score. I have a lot of the characteristics of a "FICO high achiever" except that I had one 30d. late payment about 5.5 years ago. The only other suggestion that Experian could give me as to why my score was at 747 was that I had too many installment accounts. But my CC balances are very low (i.e. less than 1% D:C)...good, right? I have an auto loan that's never late and a student loan balance that's being paid on-time as well. No mortgage. Can anyone offer advice? Should I close one of the installment accounts I'm not using? I'm at a loss for what to do. Sorry for whining about my 747 score ( I know others are in much worse shape than me) but I'm concerned that when I do apply for a mortgage, i won't get the best rate with that score. Thanks in advance for your help!!!

[GregB]

When my score was about the same as yours and had a 30day late still hanging on, it didn't take much to make my score drop. I assume that is because you are in a derogatory score "bucket" and without all the other positive effects, you score gets hurt badly. Take away one positive and it drops more than you think it should.

It made a substantial increase when it finally fell off even though most people thought that a 30day late doesn't hurt much after several years. I think it doesn't hurt much IF you have a lower score but does hurt a bunch with a better score. Mine still seemed to hurt at 7.5 years old.

[bettercreditguy1]

I had aTU 757, with new cc reporting recently. My score dropped 12 points. Reason code was too many new revolving accounts in the last year, (one new car loan and three total cc's). Two accounts hit one year in November, one in April, and the newest next June. So hopefully, come Christmas my score will be rebounded, plus inquiries will be down to two.

[Tonya-E]

I have a 30 day late that is actually from 4 years ago and my scores have reached the high achievement mark on EQ and TU. Give it some more months. I was stuck in the 740-750ish range for about 6 months or so. But once it started picking up it hasn't really stopped. My TU score is stuck right now though but it is as a result of apping for a couple of cards with inquiries on TU within the last 6 months. It's weird becuase TU is actually reporting my 30 day late wrong. They have it being 5.7 years old for some reason. I figure the TU score should bump up to the range of EQ once those dings stop stinging as much in the "new account" category. Of course who knows where I sit on EX.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input. I just checked my TU score through MyFICO and it was much higher....probably b/c it says I have no accounts past due. Why are there differences between the ways the 3 bureaus calculate your scores? Will lenders generally check all 3 when you're applying for soemthing?

[Tonya-E]

@jenintx you're welcome! It seems that each bureau uses it's own algorithm. Each places more weight on different things than the other. I don't know why but it's true. You will notice that in the "understanding your score section" there may be differences on what's hurting your score. Like for mine TU it still says having the late payment hurts my score. But on EQ it says I opened an account too recently. I wouldn't pay much attention if you have high scores on both anyway as they tend to get nitpicky as your score gets higher. It will depend on what you are getting as to whether they will check all 3. In regards to your mortgage, they will no doubt check all three. They will use your middle score of the 3. For a car it will depend on the lender. When I got my car loan last year they only checked EQ. For credit cards it's similar. They each generally have a bureau that they use; however borderline applicants may see another report pulled. Then there are some credit card lenders that will just pull all 3. So what they pull will be a lender preference.