36
All I can tell you is what I have experienced.
Since paying off all of my debt, my credit score is the highest of my life, hovering just above 800. I have one open credit card.
If I were in your shoes, I would keep one open credit card. I would use it for things where I don't really make a purchase decision, like paying for gasoline at the pump, or the ...
19
The FICO score is an invention of one company, FICO (formerly called Fair Isaac). The exact formula is a trade secret that the company does not reveal. This allows them to maintain a monopoly on FICO scores. The only way to know what your real FICO score is is to ask that single company what it is. They will not tell you, or anyone else, how to calculate ...
11
Credit utilization, which is the amount of actual debt compared to the amount of your credit limits, is an instantaneous number. Your credit report does not show history on this, so the score is based solely on your current utilization. So in your example, if Person A and Person B have the same utilization in the current month, the utilization portion of ...
answered Dec 1 '15 at 6:18
Ben Miller - Remember Monica
95.8k24 gold badges269 silver badges343 bronze badges
10
Basically, I want to ensure that I maintain a utilization rate greater
than 0%, while paying my balance in full every month.
You will have a utilization of greater than 0% and you will be able to pay it off every month if you just use it regularly and pay it when the bill is due.
This is a typical cycle for one of my credit cards:
13 April 23:59:59 ...
8
The only time I had a reported zero balance was when I paid in full the day the bill was cut. The bill itself was zero, the utilization was zero. It was an experiment, and cost me 20 FICO points, if I recall correctly.
Since then I pay the bill in full after the bill is cut. My only issue on the high end is when that card went to 90% utilization. Again, ...
answered May 19 '15 at 1:59
8
I'm sorry, but there really is no silver bullet and the answer is fairly obvious. You need to find people who will extend credit to you, even if the terms aren't ideal, and establish a record of always paying your bills on time.
It may take a while, but eventually your credit will start to recover.
7
Your social security number is broken into parts which you noted, the first basically what state (variations in the number designate which county) and the middle is group (basically if you were to slice the country into strips vertically, which one you are in) and finally the last 4 which do appear to be random but are actually based on unique algorithms ...
7
There are a few items that you can work on that will be helpful if you understand the factors that go into the score, but the biggest factor will be your patience in demonstrating that you are a good credit risk. Only many years of good credit history will raise your score up to the 750+ target that will give you access to the lowest rates. Until then, if ...
answered Dec 10 '13 at 16:29
NL - Apologize to Monica
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7
It could be due to your "Credit Utilization" rate. If you have one credit card with a limit of $5,000 and charge $4,500 each month and pay it off in full you'll get dinged. If you look at your credit report, per links in others' comments, they'll typically have a value that shows the maximum balance you had at any time.
If this max balance ...
7
To the best of my knowledge, your immigration status is unknown to the credit reporting agencies, so changing from visa to green card or from green card to citizenship will have no effect whatsoever on your credit score.
7
The credit requests will show up, but will not affect your credit score for the "shopping" period. Based on this from myfico, it looks like the interval might be 14, 30, or 45 days dependent on the scoring algorithm used by the lender.
Does the formula treat all credit inquiries the same?
No. Research has
indicated that the FICO score is more ...
6
There are 5 components to your credit score.
Age of accounts. Just as it sounds, this is how old your accounts are. Paid off accounts can fall off your score and, in the case of a mortgage, likely make the average lower.
Utilization. This is simply how much unsecured debt you have divided by your total credit limit.
Payment history. How timely are ...
5
In your example you want them to loan you $200K. Yet without a job you don't have a source of income. The $100K deposit either wipes out your savings or makes a significant dent in your savings. The lender will be concerned that in a matter of months the borrower will be unable to continue to make payments.
The size of the deposit as a percentage of the ...
5
Check with your bank.
As of January, 2015, the following banks and credit unions are offering free credit-scores:
Barclaycard US
First Bankcard (the credit card business of First National Bank of Omaha)
Citibank (C),
Discover (DFS),
Digital Credit Union,
the Pentagon Federal Credit Union, and
North Carolina's State Employees' Credit
Union
Announced, ...
5
Paying off the car loan could have a small impact. 10% of your score is based on credit mix and if you only have a credit card, that could lower your score. The auto loan would be considered an installment loan and was adding some diversity to your credit portfolio, but your student loan(s) should fit into that category as well. If you are still paying on ...
4
The date opened (6/06) is there, and any negative remarks would be there for 7 years, and there are none. This minor detail, lack of specific history, isn't anything to be concerned with.
answered Oct 22 '14 at 16:14
4
The FICO score ranges from 300 to 850, and as a practical matter it's rare to be at the extreme low end of the range.
You may jump in with a decent credit score before long, as you accumulate a little credit. However, significant factors in credit scoring are the length, depth, and breadth of your credit history and recently opening credit accounts - so ...
4
First, you need to ask yourself why you want a higher score. There is a point at which you gain no benefit from increasing your score.
Second, you need to understand that the credit utilization component of your score is an instantaneous value. It has no history and no memory. Therefore, maintaining a specific utilization percentage every month for a ...
answered Jul 12 '16 at 19:04
Ben Miller - Remember Monica
95.8k24 gold badges269 silver badges343 bronze badges
4
A few points:
The reason your lender is asking you to be above 580 is because that is the magic number for an FHA loan where your down payment would be only 3.5% (the US Government effectively subsidizes the rest of your down pmt). If you had a score lower than that (but still above 500), you will need to put 10% down which is still less than the typical 20%...
4
The timing of the reports can be different, the weightings of information on the report can be different, and the scale itself can be different as there are variations of the FICO scores, and variations of which FICO reporting company the credit card system is using. These are the differences.
Your credit worthiness should still be apparent, as it isn't ...
4
The biggest single factor in your credit score is payment history, which makes sense since the credit score is supposed to indicate the likelihood that you will pay off any additional debt.
The missed payments will affect your score more than anything else. I would make AT LEAST the minimum payments if at all possible, and try to come up with a plan to get ...
3
If you mean closing credit card accounts it will hurt your credit score in two ways:
1) It will reduce your available credit, which in turn will increase the utilization percentage of your credit if you owe a balance on any other card.
2) It will reduce the average age of your open accounts unless it was the last card you obtained.
3
Credit Karma is not intimately aware of all of the underwriting guidelines at American Express. It's just a third party service that tracks credit. Its data roughly knows what people's credit looked like when they apply (because the inquiry will appear) then it knows if a card is issued (because the credit line will appear). From that Credit Karma has ...
3
Your utilization is MORE hurt by your total utilization, your credit score is drastically lower than it could be because of this.
You want to get your total utilization under 10% (or under 30% or under 15%, different sources will say different things, truth is that lenders can adjust their risk models at their discretion)
High utilization of any one card ...
3
My answer at How will going from 75% Credit Utilization to 0% Credit Utilization affect my credit score? offers a bit of detail, but the bottom line is that Utilization is aggregate. My $10,000 limit card is fine to push to $8K each month only because my other lines add up to quite a bit, so utilization is 10% or so.
I recommend you look at CreditKarma, ...
answered Jan 15 '14 at 19:39
3
TL:DR - as long as you always pay on time, Utilization is the largest factor, and the one most in your control.
Your question is off a bit in how you compare the factors. A hard inquiry has a 2 year life. 25 months and it's behind you.
The card might drop your utilization, but also drop your average time your accounts are open. It also adds one to the ...
answered Jan 16 '17 at 0:59
3
The generally accepted formula for maximizing your FICO score is 3 revolving accounts with only one reporting a small balance (~5% of the limit), one open installment account and one open mortgage account. Maintain that combination, with no late payments or other negatives and your score will quickly rise to 800+
Edit: changed "carrying" to "reporting" for ...
3
How bad will it hurt? Badly. VERY badly. Depending on your current scores a single 30 day late can cost a hundred points or more. Before stopping payments, I would suggest looking for ways to use those cards such that the minimum payment is effectively removed from your budget. For example, say one card has a $100 minimum payment and you have a $200 ...
3
You've asked (or implied) a lot of semi-related questions about how your finances will impact your loan costs. In order to answer them, it may help to step back and consider the bigger picture about mortgage decision making.
Banks generally want to know four things when it comes to approving a mortgage loan:
Is the property good collateral? A mortgage is a ...
3
Can paying a loan in full or closing an account hurt your credit score just due to the fact that you are making less ongoing payments, even though that is only because you don't owe anyone anything?
For you, the answer is "it doesn't matter", more on this later.
In my case no, after paying off all my debt I know have a far higher score now then I ...
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