700 Club!!!!!

Congratulations on your success. I remember being in the low 600's and wanting to be in the 700's. Last time I checked (Got approved on a 36k w/ lowest rate possible) my fico was 763. Im shooting for 800's now, and laying the steps for a approval of a mortgage loan. With the credit that I have and the loan of this automobile (going on 1 year) within the next year or two. I want to buy and house, and hopefully can get approved easily with a first time mortgage with no money down.

Now go get those PRIME cards. My first stop was AMERICAN EXPRESS. Then CITIcards.

GOOD LUCK!

 

Big way to go!!!!

Don't worry about achieving a score above 800. Here are a few reasons why...

Many lenders consider seven FICO ranges, and here they are:
1) 720-850
2) 700-719
3) 675-699
4) 620-674
5) 560-619
6) 500-559
7) 499 and below
(Sources: Gerri Detweiler's "The Ultimate Credit Handbook"; Suze Orman's "Ask Suze About Debt")

Now, while you should keep in mind that these aren't hard and fast categorical rules -- i.e., different lenders may well draw the categories differently, and different "experts" may redraw them as well -- we can at least generalize a relatively safe conclusion: Anything above the mid 700s will practically always net the best credit terms with practically any lender. In that respect, there's probably no discernible real world difference between what you'll get with a 760 and an 830.

Another, more philosophical, reason for not worrying about scores in the 800s...

The Motley Fool (fool.com) offers an online seminar from time to time called "FICO 850" which I co-authored. Every time that seminar is offered I inevitably receive emails from participants who have perfect credit reports and scores of, say, 775, whose goal it is to have a so-called perfect credit score of 850. These compulsive individuals seldom like my answer which always runs something like this:

Why in the world would you want a FICO score of 850? That only means that you meet an average creditor's idea of the perfect credit stooge. An 850 is going to be the perfect "Stepford" debtor. An 850 has no fun with their credit because they either pay it back oh-so-predictably over just a very few months (for installment loans) or SELDOM use the credit and even then just barely (for revolving accounts). An 850 is invariably going to have a credit history of 20+ years with just the perfect Stepford Borrower's credit mix. An 850 lives in just the right Stepford Borrower's neighborhood (a contention that Fair Isaac disputes, in fairness to them, but one that consumer advocates have noticed time and again so maybe there's a related but less discernible demographic variable at play). But most importantly, an 850 doesn't get a better rate with any prime lender, whether it's MBNA or Chase Mortgage or GMAC, than does a 750. Time to worry about something else!

The bottom line is that if you've got perfect credit (no negatives), then you can increase your credit score in the standard ways: decreasing revolving utilization ratios, watching accounts age, improving the credit mix and watching that newer configuration age, etc. However if your score is, say, in the upper 700s, my advice is to not worry too much about crossing that 800 transom. (Of course, the competitive ones among us simply can't resist meeting a numerical goal, so that's ok too, LOL.)

Doc

 

I have always set my goal to reach 740. Once there, I know I'll get the best rates. You are 100% correct IMHO that a mid-700 FICO is considered golden and anything above that is just a number to shoot for with no real added benefit. My mortgage lender said "Just get to 720 and you'll be fine" i.e. you'll qualify for our lowest rates.

Cards may go a bit higher, but not too much. I "cold" applied for some cards with a 710 FICO and got the lowest advertised rates on the website.

Of course, future apr cuts depend not only on internal scoring, but a profit score as well. A history helps out alot too

Good post Doc