Here is the deal, me and my husband are trying to refinance our house. My credit sucks and I am trying to clean it up but his credit looks so much better than mine and we went to a mortgage company and had them run his credit and he came back with a 509 on EQ and all he really has on there is a couple of 30 day lates. My score is higher than this and I have charge offs and so much other crap. What else could be playing into this? Please help, is there any way to fight the score? Im so confused!
I think most of the posters here would need a little more info on your husband's CR to give you a better course of action. ie: time, credit limits, what kind of accounts etc, etc. You can pull the reports from all three and start comparing the info on each one. Best regards, Mirage
Being in the 500-range myself, I am no expert. However, it sounds like your husband's report may not be suffering from too much negative information, but too little positive information. Does he pay for everything with cash or check? Has he purchased anything with credit, installment payments, etc? If he hasn't built up a credit history with credit cards, at retailers, car payments, etc. chances are there just isn't anything on his report to indicate any kind of positive credit history. That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Sorry, I try not to give too much info and start rattling off stuff that isnt relavent. Gmac Mort - Shows 1x 30 in the last 6 months Prov, - 1x in last 6 months Ford Motor, Capital 1 and Dillards - 1x 30 two years ago Thats it for the neg info Citifinancial Limit 8100, Bal 8000 Shell Limit 700, Bal 500 Sears limit 450, Bal 400 Prov limit 1000, bal 600 JC Penn limit 1100, bal 1000 Citgo limit 450, bal 400 2 Cap 1 limit 1750, bal 1450 B O A limit 7500, bal 1800 Auto loan High Bal 17,000 we owe 11,000 Ford Credit High Bal 44,000 we owe 30,000 All of these accounts are paid on time since they were opened. Some date as far back as 1993 I hope this will help and is what you need
Balances are to close to the credit limits on a lot of his stuff. This is the same problem I am having. I have no lates, no derogs. And my score is about 650ish. If my balances were more like 30% of the limits and not 81% like they are now, I would be in the 700 club.
even the guy at the mortgage company who has been doing this for like 20 years said he couldnt believe it was this low and he looks at credit reports all day long. Could it be a wrong score, how do we know if its screwed up?
Yup, looks like a combination of maxing out on the cc and the dergos (the ones that are recent are probably hurting the score more so than the older one). You can double check the score on MyFICO.com. Look for the promo codes that are listed here somewhere and get a discount. Also have you been credit shopping in the last 6 months? Each pull from a creditor will cost you a few points. Best regards, Mirage
Looks like on at least 7 cards, you are over 50% utilization. I took a 24 point hit on my EQ report for just ONE new acct adding to my report and being over 50%. Being conservative, say you only take half of that 24(12) and adding that up over 7 accounts, (8 if you count 2 cap 1 accts) and that's 84 points minimum to be gained back by paying down debt. By the time you did that, you'd also likely fall into another category or group and could likely experience an even higher score. Just my thoughts.
Citifinancial Limit 8100, Bal 8000 Shell Limit 700, Bal 500 Sears limit 450, Bal 400 Prov limit 1000, bal 600 JC Penn limit 1100, bal 1000 Citgo limit 450, bal 400 2 Cap 1 limit 1750, bal 1450 This is his problem. The balances are too close to the limits. This will kill his score everytime because it looks like he can't manage his spending. It also gives the false impression that he's in financial trouble and about to go under. Also the cars don't help because for some reason, the FICO score genie doesn't take into account that the car loans are installment and not revolving. It's all a scam really.
Re: Re: oddly low score SoParkDiva, Never heard this before. Not that I'm arguing, but where did you find this out and how? Do you have more on this? Thanks!
Re: Re: Re: oddly low score Back when all I had on my report was my car and my Cap 1 card - both perfect pay history, MyFico.com gave one of the reasons for keeping my score low was the high balance on my cl's even though the Cap 1 was a zero balance and the car loan was a installment. So you figure it out because I give up on understanding FICO scores.
thanks everyone I kinda figured that but I guess I didnt realize it affected it THAT much. Our next step is paying down some of this debt. Do you suggest closing the accounts after that or keeping them open?
If you've had them for a while, keep them open. The longer an acct is open, the better it is for your history. If any of those are relatively new, I might would consider closing those. Another reason to keep them open is for available credit limit/utilization ratios.
I would definitely keep them open. Your problem now is that your balances are too high in relation to the limits. If you close accounts, you make the available limits lower and keep the ratio too high. How long has he had these accounts? Length of history counts, too. You might want to try calling some of the creditors and asking for a credit limit increase--BUT SPECIFY ONLY IF THEY CAN DO IT WITHOUT PULLING A CREDIT REPORT. You don't want the inquiry from them pulling the report. But if you can get the limits higher, that will also help your balance to limits ratio. SoParkDiva--maybe your auto loan was coded incorrectly. Mine is definitely listed as an installment loan, not revolving.
Hi Sutton, Your utilization is waaaay too high, and your negatives are killing ya. These two high priority FICO components are conspiring to trash your score. Fix this and I'd bet you'd get a 100 point boost.
