Mid Score: 740 (can only get real #'s on First Union & Equifax) Experian doesn't allow users to see their "real" FICO (not FAKO) scores anymore.
With that said .... I was at 580 in early 2010.
I have zero debt (minus a personal mortgage), but my credit history is still quite young (I'm 26) I have $40k - $45k in revolving credit lines that I don't use, and my AAoA (Average Age of Accounts) is about 3 years.
I'm hoping by the time I'm 30, I'll be up to the 800's :)
580 to 740 in a year is great--you could be a guru!
What else did you do to improve it so much?
Thanks Jon ....
I was able to take everything I learned on myfico.com and apply it. With a little bit of luck, timing, and perserverance, I was able to get it done. Myfico = much like BiggerPockets except for Credit Repair. A wealth of great info.
Total Cost: $20-25 in paper and stamps and about $500 - $1000 to settle with several creditors. Nothing more. Letters were sent out weekly, and not once did I ever try and dispute anything on my CR.
DIY Credit Repair is soooo simple. It took me about 2-3 months of research before I started. Once I started, it took about 5-6 months to get all negative info off my reports.
The Things That Worked:
1) Good Will (GW) Letters
2) Pay For Deletes (PFD)
I encourage anyone who needs to clean up their credit, find a good credit information site like myfico, and get started. you'll be amazed at was a simple delete of a 30 day late can do ....
I'm at 710 only because I'm young and don't yet have a credit card, I have one I'm going to activate and use sparingly to bump it up to around 730ish (that's what the myFICO prediction was anyways).
My parents on the other hand... 819 for my dad and my mom said around 830, they never have problems with financial institutions when asking for money. My dad go a loan for a $40k flipper when he was laid off!
I'm at 710 only because I'm young and don't yet have a credit card, I have one I'm going to activate and use sparingly to bump it up to around 730ish (that's what the myFICO prediction was anyways).
My parents on the other hand... 819 for my dad and my mom said around 830, they never have problems with financial institutions when asking for money. My dad go a loan for a $40k flipper when he was laid off!
710 is good. It may just seem fair, when comparing to your parents whose scores are great. Apparently they've taught you well. And welcome to BiggerPockets!
I recently had tenant applications from two roommates; one had a 420 and the other had a 515. The funny thing was that the one with 420 was the one both of them expected to have the better score! :D
How to get to 420? It looks like almost every account was in collection.
If all their accounts were delinquent and the score was 420 how did someone possibly get in the 300s earlier in the thread? Maybe the person used to have good credit so they had MORE delinquent accounts or some such. Possibly multiple bankruptcies.
I think one may crash and burn even more spectacularly than another. About 10 years ago I had $175K on cards financing my business. I could have added a Corvette to the mix, stopped paying my mortgage and seen how low I could go. 420? 380? Amazing to think you can pull that stuff and not go to jail.
I haven't checked in a couple of months, but late last year, I was an 820 and my wife was an 825. It has probably dropped a little since then. We moved to California in November and had some bills get forwarded to us late due to the change of address. But every thing is current now and it should be back up there by summer.
Thanks to being self taught in the Credit Repair Industry my score has been as high as 837 until the mortgage bubble burst back in 09' and 3 of my limits were drastically reduced from inactivity on a few High Limit Cards and 1 LOC was reduced by Half for inactivity as well.
Which dropped my utilization rate down. Right now My Score is 796 which I look to increase in the next 3 months to over 840.
Looking to PG on a 10 year Corp with 80 Paydex Score to get a LOC of 1MM
I'm 25 so I guess i'm still relatively young but my score right now is about 740 - a bit bummed (being the ultra competitor that I am) that I'm lower than most of you. I pay off all my debt immediately..never payments. Is it because I'm still a bit young that I haven't been able to "develop" more of repertoire yet? I'm sorry, I'm not extremely knowledgeable in this area yet so any info you can provide me would be great, thanks!
Some of the higher scores are gained by doing things that are somewhat dumb from what I have heard. I think carrying small balances increases your score some and having "credit diversity" seems to help too. I am not very knowledgeable here either so someone please correct me if this is inaccurate.
The important thing to note is that there is little benefit to having an 850 credit score versus a 760 credit score. Nearly all debt/credit providers are going to bucket you, and generally, the "best" bucket is 760 and above (though I've heard some say 750 and above or 780 and above).
The reason for this is that -- as Bryan alluded too -- the difference between a score on the lower end of that range and a score on the higher end of that range has little to do with creditworthiness, and more to do with understanding the algorithms that the credit bureaus use and attempting to optimize your credit decisions around them.
So, if you have a credit score in the upper 700s or better, I really wouldn't worry much about how to improve it.
And the algorithms don't necessarily correlate with what makes you a good credit risk IMO. They correlate with what makes the credit card companies money. Some of the things people have told me to do to raise my score from 805ish to a higher score are completely stupid from a credit worthiness standpoint IMO.
Having small balances on high debt limits helps. Better to have multiple credit lines with more credit and spread debt than only have 1 or so and have it be high in relation to the limit.
I have 3 credit cards that I pay off in full monthly (I get about $1000 cash back a year just for doing this :P), and 5 mortgage loans, always pay on the 15th of every month i/o the 1st (grace period w/o late fees) and my credit at its HIGHEST was 870. (Eight Seven Zero). (no 850 is not the limit) Right now it is in the 760-80s because last year I began to build business credit and had many inquiries plus I personally guaranteed some of them. One of them is showing on my personal credit and after my rehab, its low credit line is almost maxed out (which brings credit down). I did not realize it was showing on my personal credit and am waiting for a cash out refi and then will pay it off, which will bump my score back up over 800.
But, as a PP has stated, anything over 720, sometimes 740, sometimes 760 is an excellent credit rating.
BUT, its important to note, each type of credit you get runs a different type of alogarithm. For a mortgage alogaright, that 870 will show as an 825 through the mortgage alogarithm.
I'm not sure, but I know there are other scores out there that aren't FICO scores. My scores were with the 3 bureaus, so I have no idea how it showed 870. Figuring out the scoring is really ridiculous when the amount of interest rates we pay depend upon the number so much. :(
I've heard of a Vantage number or something to that respect, but its not the 3 bureaus.
Last time i had mine pulled it showed either 723 or 733, I cant remember. They said I didnt have enought debt yet for the numbers to improve. I never quite understand that logic. Basically they want me to have loans out for cars, multi CC's in use, ext.
Yes, the last time I heard the max number was 850.
790 or so is the highest I've been, taking Fair Isaac and the 3 bureaus into account. The highest I've seen is an 830. I got away from strictly score-based grading a while back, though- after runs of seeing young folks with accounts to their name having scores in the mid-700's, while I once had a couple making $200k/year and never being late in their 50-year lives had scores in the mid-500's because they had numerous open credit lines and the ability to "incur great debt quickly". Ridiculous.
There is a new scoring model that goes to 1000 I think. I posted about this a few months back. My score on that model was like 930 or something if memory serves.