MustangAl67 Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 I am trying to increase my credit score in the short term to buy a house.I have 2 store credit cards with high utilization, and I have 2 other cards with 0 balance. Would it increase my score to transfer some of the balances to reduce utilization? or Would it hurt because now I have more active accounts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
direred Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 Utilization on major credit cards hurts more (than utilization on store cards), and more cards with balances hurts more.Also, generally I've found you can't transfer balances to store cards, only between major credit cards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nascar Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 Would it increase my score to transfer some of the balances to reduce utilization? or Would it hurt because now I have more active accounts?I believe utilization is calculated based upon your total credit available versus your credit used. If you have two cards, each with $1000.00 limit, on card maxed out and one empty is the same as both cards at 50%. You're still using half the credit available to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CantCU Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 I believe utilization is calculated based upon your total credit available versus your credit used. If you have two cards, each with $1000.00 limit, on card maxed out and one empty is the same as both cards at 50%. You're still using half the credit available to you.Interesting. I tallied up all my credit cards (both paid and unpaid) and I am less than 25% if you average them all out. But if you look at the comments by the CRA's, they say I owe too much based on my credit limits, which is untrue if you consider the entire credit picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
direred Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 Individual card utilization also counts, as does all utilization.There's also the aggregate and individual bank card utilization factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CantCU Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 Individual card utilization also counts, as does all utilization.There's also the aggregate and individual bank card utilization factor.In lay terms please???Does this mean I have too many credit cards? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nascar Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 There's also the aggregate and individual bank card utilization factor.Some kind of weighted average or standard deviation multiplier perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divemedic Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 They look at two things:total util % and individual util %. They want less than 30% total util and less than 60% on each individual card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MustangAl67 Posted March 31, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 They look at two things:total util % and individual util %. They want less than 30% total util and less than 60% on each individual card.With that being said, I did a transfer to get one card to about 50%, but now the other card that was at 0% is now around 30%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CantCU Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 They look at two things:total util % and individual util %. They want less than 30% total util and less than 60% on each individual card.Thanks Divemedic! This makes sense. I have several cards with zero balances (paying off the smaller balances first) then using their promotional 0 to 1% transfers (usually 6 month time frame) to move smaller amounts, $500-600 at a time, from the higher balance cards. I never transfer more than 25% of the high limit. Was trying to keep it low as 1) I want to be able to pay off the balance during the promotional period and 2) keep it under 25%...which probably #2 isn't helping me as much as I thought it would.I'll re-think this next balance transfer! Thanks again!My goal is to be debt free (other than mortgage) in less than a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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