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EDITED: Not good, something else is going on with EX FICO 2. See last post.
Small datapoint. Same number of revolvers reporting, just taxes / lab all came up on this one statement, yay. Number of accounts/revolvers with balances didn't change.
$7716 | $25000 | 30.9% | individual |
$7758 | ~$200000 | <3.9% | aggregate |
~200k as I'm not entirely sure how the HELOC is counted; for purposes of this I simply excluded it altogether and rounded the TCL down anyway but point is still talking much less than 8.9% aggregate or whatever. Top 8 scorecard, 20 open accounts, >5 years AAOA >11 years AAOA.
No reason code shifts on FICO 8, FICO 2/3 and industry options all complaining about high revolving usage. Look what it did to EX FICO 2 though, -17 is nearly an entire mortgage tier. Admittedly further down the scorecards the decrease would be smaller but still, revolving utilization is no joke when that can cost you .25% on a mortgage.
1/8/20 | 1/9/20 | Delta | |
EX FICO 8 | 805 | 801 | -4 |
EX FICO 8 AU | 824 | 820 | -4 |
EX FICO 8 BC | 841 | 837 | -4 |
EX FICO 2 | 780 | 763 | -17 |
EX FICO 2 AU | 809 | 794 | -15 |
EX FICO 2 BC | 794 | 747 | -47 |
EX FICO 3 | 786 | 776 | -10 |
ETA 2/1/20: got a datapoint from DCU, the score shift isn't entirely clean (it was -13 but I also increased numbers of accounts with balances and I don't have reason code resolution for it).
But what I can absolutely say is it matters because this popped into the #2 slot (out of 2 provided):
Amount owed on revolving accounts is too high
Pretty explicit .
@OmarGB9 wrote:
Thanks for the DP. Yet another testament to how AZEO or similar only yields a small amount of points on classic FICO 8, but on other versions it yields plenty more. I'm wondering with my dirty file how AZEO or having 2/3 cards reporting small balances will affect my scores.
For me that would've been -8ish when I was around 700 on a dirty scorecard, specifically being N>=50% with balances.
This particular datapoint wasn't explicitly an AZEO test, I can tell you though that 1 revolver to 2 revolvers (3 to 4 accounts) on EX FICO 2 is -4 on my scorecard (784 to 780 when talking no meaningful utilization change). Again not hugely relevant, and the takeaway in all cases is that utilization dominates accounts/revolvers with balances when we're talking moving between breakpoints.
Small update, EQ FICO 5 30% apparently is a thing too. Updated main post but salient reason code showed up on DCU with the 1/31 pull
Amount owed on revolving accounts is too high
Score shift wasn't isolated, but I did drop -13 from one month to the next, 798 -> 785.
I'm going to try to report 28% or less next month, more expenses than there should've been and less income than expected: total financial whoopsie but I think there's just the HOA landing so I should be at 24.6% individual. DCU datapoint I'll see if I can get the same number of cards with balances as currently (3 // total accounts 5 with balance) to try to isolate the score shifts.
Hrm paid it down to 24.8% and only gained one point on EX FICO 8 not the 4 I lost last month.
Also EX FICO 2 didn't quite fully recover but I will have to check a few things like how many cards I had reporting a balance.
Unfortunately can't just air strike the balance, unexpecdly pooling money for a mortgage in Houston.
Well, did get a concrete datapoint, no change in revolvers affecting this last datapoint, and have the same number of revolvers reporting from the original datapoint too. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.
The high revolving utilization which was in the #3 slot for EX FICO 2 dropped off the table with the balance change 30%+ -> 25%.
EX FICO 8: 804->805 (missing 3 points here)
EX FICO 2: 763->779 (missing one point here).
I did take a bunch of mortgage inquiries but these should all be grace period. The interesting thing is the 805 is EXACTLY where I started from in this, it's way too early to state and unfortunately my mortgage is going to obliterate any concrete datapoints I could possibly get but I sort of wonder if 805 is my max attainable score with AOYRA < 1 year and two scoreable inquiries.
It's just a little weird, unless there is a threshold below 25% (like 10%) on individual I'm at a loss to explain it. I think I'll be able to get the EQ FICO 5 datapoint too, but I expect it to follow the same behavior of FICO 2 and basically regain points.
So I made a mistake in my analysis somewhere, not the first, not the last, but I had 2 more accounts report a balance with the revolver that had gone from 30+ to under-30% fixed... and the revolving utilization metric came back in the same spot and back to a similar score: 763. Interestingly, FICO 8 didn't move at all so I'll believe the 30% line there and I never saw any movement for numbers of revolvers until 1/2 there but EX FICO 2 is more finicky apparently and since it's a mortgage score need to get it straight.
It appears as though there's an aggregate utilization breakpoint, which I don't understand unless a crapload of my revolving lines aren't counted. I do have 3 revolvers reporting a balance now whereas before it was 2 which might factor but same reason code, same score shift (or darned close) and same reason code position too hrm.
Today:
6211/25000
1326/8000
395/43500 = AFAIK this card/limit is excluded or at least if I use it for AZEO I fail and wind up at AZ for too large of a limit.
The smaller 2 = $7537. Since looking for random ideas here just going to document out the rest of my tradelines
Amex Charge $0/11K high balance (don't know if this is factored, it should be)
30K National Bankcard // might not count
1K National Bankcard
2500 NBC
8400 NBC
10000 NBC
10000 NBC
500 CU //might not count
27000 HELOC //might not count
2700 NBC
15000 NBC
25000 CU //might not count
4000 NBC
20000 PLOC //might not count
2600 NBC
Taking the absolute most restrictive and exluding every possible not counting tradeline: TCL = 89200 not including the Amex.
Need to go back and look in detail at some things but I'm confused frankly unless it's the CSR at 43500 with balance that's throwing it somehow I'm at a loss as this would be less than 10% aggregate even under the most strict definition.
Yeah.
I need to do some more experimentation... unfortunately I cut payments to the two other Chase cards last night (at the same time and before I checked Experian, oh well) and both are reporting $0 this morning. Back to my pretty 783 on EX 2.
$6211 doesn't seem to trigger that but the reason code seems to appear regardless of how that ~7200-7700 was distributed.
I'm going to be playing more tax games this year at some point, and also I'm going to be leaving furniture in place in the LA condo for now so will be buying some new things in Houston so I might be able to find out what's causing this oddity on EX FICO 2.
I got a new score factor this month on EQ 5 that I never saw before (via FICO Premier 3B):
The amount owed on your revolving and/or open-ended accounts is too high.
That showed up at 9% aggregate/$1214.99 total balances reporting.
This is different from 'You've made heavy use of your available revolving credit.', which was at 5% aggregate/$539 total balances reporting. 'Heavy use' disappeared with the 5% to 9% change, and then 'Amount owed' showed up to replace it in #4.
I've now seen 3 different score factors so far related to balances:
So something happens between 5% and 9% and/or $539 and $1214.