Aerovette Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 I went to a fair amount of trouble to get my reports accurate and have been paying more than minimums and in MOST cases paying balances off in two payments. No lates, no collections for well over two years and even then only one account had trouble. The first year I started working on my info, the scores jumped significantly and I was pleasantly surprised. For the last 8 months though, no changes more than maybe one point here and there. No matter what I do or don't do, the scores are flat. I pay a monthly fee to Truecredit for tracking purposes and I am considering dropping them since there seems to never be any change. I am sitting at 651, 668, and 665. The national average stated by a few different sources, is 670 and I want to get above that line. My D to I is 15%, My total debt including my mortgage is about what people pay for a nice car. What gives? What can I do to get over the hump? ( I have two balances that I cannot pay off because of the amount so this is not an option.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilton1 Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Have you looked at the FICO scores; they may be much higher than the Truecredit scores. So your score may have increased. Use the CPPSAVINGS to get a 20% discount at myfico.comMake be it is the balance that you have on the cards that is keeping your score low. FICO does not use debt to income as a scoring criteria. Instead it uses % utilization. The high balances you mention maybe keeping your scores low. So for example, if you have a credit card with 5000 credit line and you have a balance of 4000 on that card, that will make your score low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aerovette Posted January 16, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 I agree with all that you have said except that I have 7 credit card accounts and all had some balance on them. I paid all but two off and those two have been getting more than minimum payments. I expected that this effort would improve my score, but it seems to have had no impact. I would have rather had the cash if I had known it was not going to help my rating. I am looking to buy a house and wanted to get over the "average" before shopping for a mortgage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
direred Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 I know my utilization is currently counting for about 100 points of pain according to the FICO simulators. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breathing_easier Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Aerovette: Did you close the five cards that you paid off? If so, then your FICO may be stagnate because of the history lost with the closing of the cards. What is your utilization on the two remaining cards?From the info I gathered before my 2005 refi I believe the "magic score" for mortgage purposes is 680, although I think 620 will get you a prime loan. 720+ is the number you want for the very best interest rates. Check over on the mortgage board ... they can tell you for certain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IHateCAs Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 If you have no derogs, you basically can only do two things.Pay down balances.Wait (age). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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